Vitebsk Owner Review : Confidential, surprising and timeless

The Vympel brand (pennant in French) with its double triangular flag is a creation of the Vitebsk watch parts factory in Belarus. During the economic reorganization of the 1990s, wristwatches were assembled there using Luch, Raketa, and even Chinese movements. The brand already existed, since in the early 1960s the first watch factory in Moscow, named Kirov, briefly used this brand before switching to Poljot. This model houses a Raketa 2609NA movement. It could, in fact, be mistaken for a Raketa; it has the same movement, the same case, the same hands, the same crown... The dial is gilded like the case, with the pennant logo at the bottom and a bell tower at 12 o'clock at the top. This is the former Vitebsk City Hall and current regional museum. It's not very common to depict a bell tower on a watch dial, and yet it seems quite logical. We used to tell the time thanks to the bell tower, whether it was the church's or the town hall's. And today, they sometimes serve as relay antennas for mobile phone networks that tell the time to our contemporaries. The bell tower is the best representation of a place there is. We each connect with its bell tower. The watch was produced in 1992; the case back bears a dated inscription, given that it was given as a gift for a special occasion. The dial reminds me of a film released twenty years later, in 2012, when the end-of-the-world theme was in vogue, with the Mayan calendar and all that mythology. It's Alexei Balabanov's latest film, "I Want It Too," whose poster depicted a rather similar bell tower. This bell tower was located in a special area, similar to that of Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, and the main characters absolutely wanted to go there, fascinated as they were like insects by a lamp, because it was said that some could find happiness there while others could not. The title of the film comes from those who are not chosen by the bell tower, who in their short wandering before dying cry out that they also want to have the right to happiness. In short, everyone dies alone, either by being chosen in a flash of lightning going to the sky, or by wandering in the zone, lamenting not being chosen and finally falling to the ground. It is a disturbing film because inequality and arbitrariness reign not only over life but also over death. Whereas very often, in the representations of death that we have, there is either the idea of a final judgment, of divine justice, or the idea of equality because everyone passes away. This film combines inequality and arbitrariness. The bell tower on this dial is a symbol of the passing of time, ringing for everyone. It's also the building that rises toward the sky, dominating the houses we live in. The gilded dial has aged unevenly; the right side is blackened, while the left side retains all its brilliance. This seems to me to sum up the dichotomy this bell tower creates: some are destined for the light, while others cannot prevent their fall into darkness. The coachman stands at the center, between light and darkness. The soundtrack to listen to with this watch, to continue the analogy with the film, would be its soundtrack, notably "Auktzyon - Zimy ne boudet." https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FkAMzbGeFeM&list=OLAK5uy_kw6DoSzCzfay952PMlIgv1vyqHP66un4A Adjectives: celestial, golden, brilliant, dark, supernatural, ephemeral