#raketa
Some say this is the original wristshot: Josef Koudelka, Warsaw Pact troops invasion. Prague, Czechoslovakia. August, 1968. [The watch is a Raketa 2603.]
Koudelka: I wanted to take a photograph of the Soviet tanks and soldiers alone in Wenceslas Square after the people of Prague had decided not to demonstrate so as not to give the Soviet occupiers a pretext for a massacre-the Czechs realized they were being set up. In my photograph of the hand with the watch, you don’t see the Soviets … I climbed to the top of one of the buildings, and the Soviets saw me. They thought I was a sniper and started to chase me. I ran through hallways into another building, and by chance found that a friend of mine was living there. I left all the film I had shot that day-about twenty rolls-with him, just in case the Soviets caught me when I left the building.
For more information about that photograph, Josef Koudelka, and wristshots see:
“Just in Time: The Brilliant Career of Josef Koudelka”
“Josef Koudelka, décryptage du plus célèbre wristshot de l’histoire (Partie 1)”
“Raketa 2603, la montre de Koudelka enfin révélée”
“Josef Koudelka and the Raketa 2603 (Prague Spring)”
”A Brief History of the First Watch Wrist Shot“ (video)
“How to (and not to) Photograph a Watch”
“Wristshots: The Story So Far”
”Reminiscence“ (a 2016 remake of that shot)
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Hi everyone!
Today I received this watch - as a little New Year’s gift for myself - a Soviet Raketa straight from the 80s.
And here’s a little story about it :)
The watch “Raketa”-“Zero” ( rus. Большой ноль, “Big Zero”) of the Petrodvorets Watch Factory appeared in 1984-1985.
By order of the All-Union Society of the Blind, a watch design with a white dial, large contrasting numbers and wide hands was developed for visually impaired people.
By 1986, the release of this model was planned to be discontinued, since enough watches were produced for the Society, and ordinary citizens didn’t need them. Perestroika has begun.
For the first time this design became popular thanks to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev. During an international summit in Italy, he was asked to explain what “perestroika" means. Gorbachev just pointed at his Raketa “Big Zero" watch and said: “It’s like on my watch: the Russians want to start everything from ground zero!”
The phrase immediately made headlines in Italian newspapers. That’s how the legend of “Big Zero" began!
Italian entrepreneurs came to the Petrodvorets Watch Factory. The watch with “zero” delighted them and they made a huge order for themselves, the demand for everything related to “perestroika” in the West was very great at that time.
From that moment on, the production of all kinds of exterior designs of the “zero” began at the PWF: on the theme of perestroika (with images of Soviet symbols), pocket watch, in classic cases, with black dials and even with a holographic film on the dial.
@elenatria@connihd@progressi9@legasovas@litttlesilkworm@odense@bewareofdragon@art-is-a-malady@johnlockismyreligion@cinemaocd
