page_title: Poljot
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Poljot / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Poljot "Aviator" chronograph watch with 3133 movement.
context_page_description: Poljot, is a brand of Soviet/Russian wristwatches, produced since 1964 by the First Moscow Watch Factory. The flagship brand of the USSR's watch industry, Poljot produced numerous historical watches used in many important space missions, including the world's first space watch worn by Yuri Gagarin.
context_section_description: Founded in 1930 under orders from Joseph Stalin, the First State Watch Factory (Russian: Первый Государственный Часовой Завод - 1ГЧЗ) was the first large scale Soviet watch and mechanical movement manufacturer. Via its USA-based trading company Amtorg, the Soviet government bought the defunct Ansonia Clock Company of Brooklyn, New York in 1929, and the Dueber-Hampden Watch Company of Canton, Ohio. It moved twenty-eight freight cars full of machinery and parts from the USA to Moscow in order to establish the factory. Twenty-one former Dueber-Hampden watchmakers, engravers and various other technicians helped to train the Russian workers in the art of watchmaking as part of the Soviet's first five-year plan. The movements of very-early products were still stamped "Dueber-Hampden, Canton, Ohio, USA" (examples of these watches are very collectible today). In 1935 the factory was named after the murdered Soviet official Sergei Kirov.
  As the Germans closed in on Moscow in 1941, the factory was hurriedly evacuated to Zlatoust (Russian: Златоу́ст). By 1943 the Germans were in retreat, and the factory moved back to Moscow, adopting the "First Moscow Watch Factory" name (Russian: Первый Московский Часовой Завод - 1МЧЗ).
  In 1947 the first wristwatches under the brand name "Pobeda" and the first Marine Chronometers and Deck watches were produced. By 1951 the production of wristwatches had increased to 1.1 million. In 1975 new machinery and equipment for manufacturing complex watches was imported from Switzerland.  The first chronograph "Okean" (caliber 3133) was produced for the space station "Sojuz-23."
  In 1990 production of watches and clocks reached 5 million pieces, and in 1991 the international award "Golden Trophy for Quality" was awarded in Madrid.
caption: Poljot Aviator caliber 3133 chronograph
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