Vostok is a Russian watch manufacturer based in Chistopol, Tatarstan. It grew out of the evacuation of the First Moscow Watch Factory to Chistopol during the Second World War (sources give 1941 or 1942) and was first known as the Chistopol watch factory. It began making Kirovskie wristwatches in 1943 and in 1952 introduced the shock-resistant, dust-proof and waterproof Kama. In 1965 it became the official supplier to the USSR Ministry of Defence and launched the Komandirskie, followed in 1967 by the Amfibia dive watch. The factory took the name Vostok in 1969, after its first precision watch model. It was privatised in 1993, went bankrupt in 2010 and was reorganised into smaller entities owned by Vostok Watch Factory Ltd.
Vostok is known today for ruggedised mechanical watches, chiefly the Komandirskie and the Amfibia. During the 1991 Gulf War the US military ordered large numbers of Komandirskie watches for its forces. In a 2016 interview the company’s chief executive reported around 450 employees and output of about 15,000 to 18,000 watches a month.
