Konstantin Chaykin Interview & Manufacture Visit In Moscow, Russia

Following a nerve-racking 80-minute taxi drive through Moscow - the trill of a lifetime, I can tell you that! - I arrived at the Konstantin Chaykin manufacture Because what's a better combination for a festival of fiery plastic death than cheap petrol, poorly maintained cars, lots of traffic, and the deep-rooted spirit of racing for the same patch of tarmac evidently shared by thousands of Eastern-block taxi drivers?! Set in the bowels of a decidedly Russian industrial estate, the Konstantin Chaykin manufacture building itself is actually neat, with little flowers and Konstantin's red Ducati bike surrounding it This makes for a track record that is important to identify if we want to better understand his work and his place in the watch industry: Konstantin is utterly disinterested in traditional complications.

The first book I pulled from there while waiting for him to arrive was about watch wearing habits through history - and indeed, it explained, through some rather hilarious and/or impressive paintings, how the 1%-ers of several hundred years ago used to rock their special pocket watches It's an immensely fortunate blend of cultural, engineering, historical, and academic knowledge, which explains how he can go from a watch that keeps time on Earth and on Mars to one that plays jazz music to another that has more character and soul, than literally any other watch I've seen in my 9 years of being a fully dedicated - and rather privileged - watch nerd who's had the chance to see and wear a lot of watches It's Altshuler's TRIZ system that Konstantin relies on to transfer his ideas into finished watches.

Konstantin set out to finish his first clock that he started working on in 2003 and finished in 2004, with his rather basic tool set, based on blueprints and guides he could find: a tourbillon The first tourbillon made in Russia since 1917. . Source