Raketa Owner Review : Iconic, mythical and exceptional

This is certainly one of the most prized Raketa watches by collectors, the "Goroda" (Cities in Russian, pronounced almost like "Garada" because the unstressed vowels are attenuated and there the accent is on the last syllable). It is nicknamed thus because of the large Louis Cottier-style universal time bezel. It is massive, since it is 43 mm in diameter (and even 45 mm if we count the crown) for 11 mm thick. The watch itself is on 12 hours, with the day and date - It is a caliber 2628N with 19 Jewels, double calendar, day and date. But there are white graduations on 24 hours in order to use the universal time bezel. It was first produced in the late 1970s for the Soviets, then in the late 1980s for the Italian market. The case is a type 313 in gold-plated brass on 10 or 1 micron depending on the version. There are also chrome versions. There are several dial colors, blue being the most common. The back is clipped in steel. The domed plexi glass gives an impression of cosmopolitan roundness. This great classic of the Raketa collections always makes me think of a Russian rock classic, "nobody writes to the colonel" by Bi-2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u7WN2zBEDc First of all because the song begins like the name of the watch that we slowly count down "Bolchìe Gorodà". Because it is a song about time that passes differently depending on where we are and who we are. Inspired by the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez who lived in Mexico at the time and wrote about Colombia. It is a song about emigration and solitude. It was composed in a big city on the other side of the world, in Melbourne, it became emblematic of the 2000s because the director Alexei Balabanov gave it the central place in the film Brat 2. It must be said that it was not his initial choice, he had preferred a song about the war crimes in Afghanistan that forged the cultural universe of the killers of the 90s. But the singer had categorically refused in view of the project of a cinematic ode to ultraviolent organized crime and primary nationalism that it conveyed diametrically opposed to the humanist commitment that animated the composition of the song. This is how the hit of Bi-2 came into play. The club scene shot in Saint Petersburg, is supposed to take place in Chicago. It's the whole scope that we shoot, Colombia, Australia, Ingria, Illinois, Pennsylvania... In short, all the time zones are there or almost. "Big cities, Empty trains, There is no shore, no bottom We have to start all over again from scratch." The song must also be suitable, I guess for the Big Zero special edition "Brat 2". But hey, there are other reasons to love this song or this good little planet and all these time zones besides a blissful admiration for the international organized crime. You can look at your telescope to see what time it is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or the Tokyo Institute of Technology rather than Brighton Beach or Marbella. You can love the song apart from what it has become through its passage to the silver screen. Adjectives: imposing, global, universal, terrestrial, traveling, brilliant, cosmopolitan, amazing