Raketa: Finding the Hidden Squirrel in Kirov Region

January 21, 2021

Raketa: Finding the Hidden Squirrel in Kirov Region

I have acquired this Raketa watch for a while, which in my opinion the best design dress watch of all time from Raketa. It has the simplest 2609 manual winding movement, with minimalist dial design. There's no Raketa word as branding but purely the logo of Raketa below 12 O'clock marking.

However the evil is in the details, if you pay serious attention to the dial under certain lighting condition, you will notice a small emblem found above 6 O'clock marking. What's that emblem?

After having discussion with Dashiell, and with those photo samplings he shared, the emblem image shows up slightly clearer than expected. The word "КИРОВ" (KIROV) is fairly obvious, and I do see something that looks like Christmas tree in the emblem but it was just a wild guess.

I ran the search on "киров герб елка" (KIROV emblem xmas tree) in Yandex and viola, it seems we have matches :)

Apart from the standard old city coat of arms, with a hand pulling the bow at the lower left corner, surprisingly we see the cute golden squirrel on the emblem as well, together with some other objects that I had no ideas which beneath the Christmas tree.

With matching emblem showing up, things become much easier to demystified -

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B1_%D0%9A%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0_(%D0%9A%D0%B8%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C)

On May 27, 1969, by the decision of the 2nd session of the 12th convocation of the Kirov City Council of Working People's Deputies, a new coat of arms was approved, which had the following appearance: a green spruce was depicted in a red heraldic shield , a golden squirrel on it , below a composition of a gear, wheat ear and a retort. In the upper part of the coat of arms, on a gold ribbon, the name of the city was placed, and in the lower part, in a gold field, there was an element of the old city coat of arms, a hand pulling the bow, but directed not not downward, but to the right (from the shield holder), as in the provincial coat of arms of 1856. The author of the new coat of arms was V.V. Moshchakov.

According to the information here -

https://kopilkaurokov.ru/klassnomuRukovoditeliu/prochee/gierb-kirovskoi-oblasti

In the 1960s, a new symbol of the city was developed - the sign adopted on May 27, 1969 by the decision of the 2nd session of the 12th convocation of the Kirov City Council. Official description:

In the scarlet shield on the left is a green spruce, edged with gold, with a gold squirrel sitting on it, facing left. The foot of the spruce is burdened with a black retort surrounded by a golden half-gear and an ear. In the golden free part at the bottom right, the outgoing hand holds a black bow and arrow. In the unfinished golden top is the name of the city.

В знаке отражены основные черты Кирова, как центра Кировской области: большие запасы леса, развитые сельское хозяйство и промышленность. Белка отражает статус Кирова как «меховой» столицы.

The sign reflects the main features of Kirov as the center of the Kirov region: large reserves of wood, developed agriculture and industry. Squirrel reflects the status of Kirov as a "fur" capital.

So for those objects around Christmas trees are -

squirrel
machinery gear
wheat ear
retort

There are other symbolic meaning of Squirrel to Slavics which you can find here -

http://bogislavyan.ru/belka/

The shape of retort is little awkward to me, but then this is found -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retort

In a chemistry laboratory, a retort is a device used for distillation or dry distillation of substances. It consists of a spherical vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heated. The neck acts as a condenser, allowing the vapors to condense and flow along the neck to a collection vessel placed underneath.

But that's not all. There's something below Raketa logo. If you pay attention, you will notice "600 лем" (600 Years) inscription on the dial -

What we need to do now is searching "600лем Хлынов, Вятка" (600 years of Khlynov, Vyatka), which is the old name for Kirov region. So here are some useful information found -

Image Source: www.adsl.kirov.ru

Video Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQDYHLCdO9g&feature=emb_logo

By now we roughly have the idea that this Raketa watch is most probably released in 1974 with the order from Kirov region (1374-1974).

Image Source: https://ppt-online.org/697365 (page 77)

But now leaving the question why the emblem faded on the dial? If you are long time Russian watch collector, you will come to realize that the print on dial usually fading over time, especially if it is exposed to different light and temperature, and the initial print on the dial is most likely red color, which are always found to be faded on a lot of Russian vintage watches. Of course we can only 100% confirm if we ever find the same watch in NOS condition that has been in storage for years.

It was fun, finding the Hidden Squirrel in 600 years (1374-1974) of Kirov Region ;-)