Description
Chaika “Medicine” Soviet ladies’ quartz watch with pulse scale
MADE IN USSR!
A ladies’ Soviet doctor’s watch with a working pulse scale: count 15 heartbeats and the seconds hand points to the pulse in beats per minute – about a quarter of the time a full-minute count takes.
The dial has a brushed grey centre inside a cream ring, with two red pulse scales – one read from 12, the other from 6. Each is marked “ГРАДАЦИЯ 15 ПУЛЬСОВ” (graduated for 15 pulse beats) and reads from 35 to 160 beats per minute. A red bowl-and-snake emblem of medicine sits under 12. The dial is signed “ЧАЙКА”, “КВАРЦ” (quartz) and “СДЕЛАНО В СССР” (made in the USSR).
Made at the Chaika watch factory in Uglich, USSR. Chaika (“seagull”) was the radio callsign of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.
The watch is quartz and runs on a single button-cell battery. The movement is the Soviet quartz calibre 1956.
CASE SIZE 33mm x 29mm (with crown)
THICKNESS 9.5mm
TYPE Quartz
MOVEMENT 1956
FUNCTIONS Hours, Minutes, Seconds, pulse scale (15 beats)
This watch has recently been serviced by a professional watchmaker and keeps good time.
Comes complete with its integrated steel bracelet.
Watches like this were made for doctors and nurses.
HOW TO TAKE A PULSE WITH THIS WATCH
1. Feel for the pulse at the wrist and wait for the seconds hand to reach 12 or 6 – the dial has a scale for each.
2. Start counting heartbeats as the hand passes that mark.
3. Stop on the 15th beat and read the number under the seconds hand on the scale you started from – that is the pulse in beats per minute.
Counting 15 beats takes about 15 seconds at a resting pulse, so there is no need to count for a full minute. Example: start at 12, and if the 15th beat lands as the hand reaches 3, the scale reads 60.
This watch ships from 🇺🇦 Ukraine with tracking number
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We guarantee the item you receive looks and works exactly as advertised —or your money back.
About Chaika brand
Chaika / Чайка
In December, 1937, the Council of People’s Commissars ordered a factory to be built in the town of Uglich, 120 km north of Moscow. This factory, named the Second State Precision Jewel Factory (ТТК-2), was constructed from 1938 until 1942. Initially, the factory produced semi-precious and precious stones for the technical industry (such as ruby jewels to be used in watch movements).
In 1950, the plant was renamed Uglich Watch Factory and began focusing on wristwatch production, first manufacturing Zvezda timepieces, and in 1959, expanding to Volga watches. But throughout the 1950s, the Uglich Watch Factory did not expand beyond ladies calibers.
Meanwhile, at the Chistopol Watch Factory, the 1950s were a period of intense focus on men’s wristwatch production. Around 1960, Chaika (Чайка, meaning “seagull”) was chosen as the name for one of the many Chistopol brands produced in this era. These watches featured a 17-jewel caliber 2605 with date complication. The Chistopol Watch Factory would terminate production of Chaika-branded watches around 1964, when the factory underwent a major rebranding. These were the last and only Chaikas to ever leave Chistopol’s factory walls.
Back in Uglich, things were changing quickly. In 1963, after cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in Space, the Uglich Watch Factory was renamed Chaika Watch Factory. (Chaika was the callsign Tereshkova used during her historic flight on board Vostok 6.) Shortly thereafter, the factory released the smallest caliber ever produced in the USSR, measuring just 6 x 9 millimeters in size: the Chaika 1200. This tiny caliber would go on to win a gold medal at the Leipzig World Fair in fall of 1966.
The Chaika Watch Factory lived on for decades, producing a wide array of different watches for both women and men, including automatic calibers, dive watches, ladies watches, and the first quartz resonator ever produced in the Soviet Union. These watches were also in high demand abroad and were exported to some 50 countries worldwide.
In 2006, the firm suspended mass production of wristwatches, and in 2009, the plant officially filed for bankruptcy.