Raketa's stylish 1980s “Big Zero” mechanical watch - like this full-serviced near new-old stock Cold War-era 1980's Raketa "Big Zero" mechanical here, the Cyrillic dial variant only sold within the USSR - has an intriguing past, and was known to have been worn by Mikhail Gorbachev during the 1980’s.
 
Up front, we only source the Raketa examples we sell from the Ukraine. 
 
During the Cold War, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) competed across multiple battlefields, cold and hot.  These included wars like Korea and Vietnam, near-miss endgames like the Cuban Missile Crisis, and shadowy proxy wars around the world. 
 
And, per Watches of Espionage, “One of the lesser-known battlefields involved influence operations.”
 
“Both superpowers used overt, clandestine, and covert resources to influence non-aligned populations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.  In the U.S., the lead agency was the U.S. State Department and, specifically, the Policy Planning Staff (PPS).  George Kennan, the State Department senior official responsible for the PPS, served in Moscow and realized the U.S. faced an implacable foe under Joseph Stalin determined to control the world either by force of arms or by political warfare.”
 
“To counter that threat…Kennan understood a successful program would have to include every possible tool in the national security tool kit.  This included public diplomacy, economic and military support to neutrals as well as allies, and clandestine and covert influence programs run by the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency."
 
"The diverse set of CIA operations supporting this strategic plan included clandestine publishing and delivery of books banned in the USSR such as Boris Paternak’s 'Doctor Zhivago,' smuggling news and music radio broadcasts into the Warsaw Pact countries and the USSR, and effective use of ‘agents of influence’ to deliver a U.S.-orchestrated message.”
 
To counter this, the USSR used similar techniques - offering foreign journalists tours of “Potemkin villages” presenting the power of the communist economy, May Day celebrations included displays of the Soviet military might, etc.  “The KGB conducted ‘active measures’ propaganda using their own agents of influence designed to portray the West and most especially the U.S. as a poverty-stricken, depraved nation.”
 
“The greatest tool in the Soviet propaganda tool kit was their space program.  While U.S. rockets were blowing up on the launch pad, the Soviets launched a small satellite, SPUTNIK, in October 1957 which broadcasted a radio signal as it orbited the Earth.  In April 1961, the Soviets put the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit, providing rocket fuel for the USSR’s propaganda program.”
 
Part of this propaganda campaign was Soviet watch company Raketa, which acquired its namesake from Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin inaugural flight into outer space, the first for mankind. In honor of the flight, Petrodvorets named its watches “rocket,” or raketa in Russian, after Gagarin’s epic space flight.  Its watches were easy to use hand-wound watches that utilized basic mechanical movements, and the watches were worn by Soviet political and military leaders, and – naturally – “Soviet astronauts, pilots, and polar explorers.”
 
Raketa watches advertised Soviet successes in military operations, space, and exploration and were exported to many Eastern Bloc and communist countries and were considered one of the most durable and reliable movements there – the Ak-47 of watches at the time, if you will. 
 
“These designs were primarily focused on building solidarity within the Soviet Union, but they were also exported around the globe allowing citizens of non-aligned countries with weak economies to own a reliable watch marked in English as ‘MADE IN USSR’… The objective was clear: While the West produced watches for the elite, the Soviet Union made watches for the common man.”
 
But the Raketa Big Zero represents more than just a propaganda effort – after the fall of the Berlin War and the USSR itself, the watch came to Russian Premier Mikhail Gorbachev himself.
 
Per GQ Magazine, "A cult watch needs an iconic moment or wearer, either real or fictitious.  The Big Zero, launched c. 1980, is linked to reforming Russian Premier Gorbachev, who, so the story goes, wore the watch on a 1985 trip to Italy.  The press spotted the distinctive dial, and the subsequent headlines made the link with Gorbachev’s ‘Perestroika’ movement (meaning ‘restructuring’) claiming ‘Russia is starting from zero’.”  In 2003, Raketa leaned into the Gorbachev legend, reiterating the story in a promotional video about the Petrodvorets Watch Factory.
 
Gorbachev was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country’s dissolution in 1991.  Born to a poor Russian/Ukrainian peasant family in Soviet Russia, and although committed to preserving the Soviet state and its Marxist–Leninist ideals, Gorbachev believed significant reform was necessary for its survival.  He withdrew Soviet forces from the Soviet Afghan War and embarked on summits with U.S. President Ronald Reagan to limit nuclear weapons and end the Cold War.
 
Domestically, his policy of glasnost ("openness") allowed for enhanced freedom of speech and press, while his perestroika sought to decentralize economic decision-making to improve its efficiency.  Growing Russian nationalist sentiment within the Soviet republics threatened to break up the Soviet Union, leading the hardliners within the Communist Party to launch an unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in August 1991.  In the coup's wake, the Soviet Union dissolved against Gorbachev's wishes.
 
He is considered one of the most significant figures of the second half of the 20th century, and the recipient of a wide range of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize, while in the West he is praised for his role in ending the Cold War, introducing new political and economic freedoms in the Soviet Union, and tolerating both the fall of Marxist–Leninist administrations in eastern and central Europe and German unification.
 
The iconic 80's chic hasn't escaped notice, as noted by Worn&Wound in “Affordable Vintage: Raketa Big Zero” - “Dating likely from the early to mid-1980’s, the Raketa Big Zero is a bold watch that does a lot with very little…Clearly what sets this watch apart is the dramatic index design. Massive numerals for 3, 6, 9, and 0 dominate the dial."
 
"Between each numeral are two long narrow triangles, giving the watch a toothed appearance.  The strange thing about it is that it works.  The huge numbers, though clearly oversized, are in harmony with the dial and the case.  The end result is bold, almost brutal, but fun.”
 
This Big Zero comes on a brown ostrich strap, and with a nylon strap, rugged travel case, and springbar tool.