Raketa

Raketa (, "Rocket") is a brand of wristwatches that have been manufactured since 1961 by the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Saint Petersburg. Raketa watches have been produced for the Soviet Armed Forces and for North Pole expeditions, as well as for civilians. Today, Raketa is one of a handful of global watch brands that produces its own movements from start to finish.

==History == On 13 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin made the first manned flight in outer space on the rocket Vostok 1. In honor of this achievement, the Petrodvorets Watch Factory named its watches "Rocket"; Raketa in Russian. However, at the height of the Cold War the name "Raketa" was perceived negatively in the West, as the word was associated with the latest generation of Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, the R-16. During Soviet times it became one of the most produced watch brands in the world. At the peak of production in the 1970s, the factory produced about five million hand-wound watches per year.