Raketa
Raketa is a historic Russian watch brand manufactured by the Petrodvorets Watch Factory in Saint Petersburg, an institution founded by Peter the Great in 1721. While the factory has centuries of heritage in stone carving and precision components, the Raketa brand was officially launched in 1961 to honor Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering flight into outer space. Raketa is distinguished as one of the few watchmakers globally that produces its mechanical movements entirely in-house, including critical components like hairsprings and escapements. The brand’s catalog is defined by functional tool watches and avant-garde designs, with key pieces including the Big Zero, famous for its oversized 0 index, and the Polar, featuring a 24-hour dial originally engineered for Soviet Antarctic explorers. Other notable collections include the Amphibia for divers, the Leopard 24 made from submarine steel, and the Russian Code, which features a counter-clockwise movement to mirror the planetary rotation of the solar system.