A month ago was my birthday. Around the same time, random browsing on the Internet brought me to information about Molnija watches, and I was able to find a beautiful older one, cleaned and in good working order, at a reasonable price. I’ve always had an interest in Russia, first from literature (Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky especially) and, soon after, thanks to a then-Soviet pen pal from Novosibirsk. We corresponded for several years, up until the 1990s, and I took a year of Russian at university. This pocket watch makes a nice memento and a lovely way to look at the time.

As Fate would have it, the watch has engraving that shows it was a birthday present for its original owner as well! I was born in the same month (April) and nearly the same year as “Sasha”, who was given the watch in 1977. Its embossed case design is the same as on the more modern Molnija Tune of the Orient, though the face and hands are quite different. The Roman numerals, delicate hands and violet-blue face on my watch are the main reason I chose it. I also love that it’s mechanical; needing to wind a watch every day has a symbolic quality.

As for a link with Nice, we have the largest Russian Orthodox cathedral outside of Russia. The église Russe, as it’s known here, is also a beautiful work of art.

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This entry was posted on Sunday 30 May 2010 at 14:40 and is filed under La France. Tags for this entry: , Молния, Molnija, Russia, watch. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.