Have you ever wondered what a vintage Soviet mechanical ladies’ watch, named Chaika, looks like from the inside? Me neither — but here we are. Today, at my improvised workbench, I decided not to repair it, not to service it, but to deconstruct it instead. What does that mean? I’m about to take apart this 20th-century, questionably engineered little timepiece.
The case measures 19.1 mm in length and 15.2 mm in width. Surprisingly, the black dial features yellow Breguet numerals — probably the only aesthetically pleasing aspect of this timepiece. It’s a manually wound watch with 17 jewels, no seconds indicator, and just the essentials: hours and minutes.
The movement itself measures 15.2 mm by 12.7 mm — by far the smallest one I’ve ever worked on at my improvised workbench. It was so tiny that it didn’t even fit on my Bergeon movement holder.
After removing the crown, I pulled the movement out of the case, revealing those gorgeous Breguet numerals. As I started searching for both dial screws, something immediately caught my eye — one of them was missing. What is it with me and dial screws? Seriously. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to tell you about another dial screw incident I recently encountered. Sadly, that one isn’t exactly missing; it’s either stuck or, dare I say, broken.
With one dial screw successfully removed, the 1301 Soviet mechanical movement is now fully on display.
You know what was the first thing I noticed when I saw the movement? The reverse-threaded screw wasn’t marked differently. Even though I already know from experience that the winding mechanism usually includes at least one reverse-threaded screw, that screw (or sometimes two of them) is typically marked with two or three lines. This particular movement offers no such indication.
Let’s start with the balance spring — that’s usually the first thing I remove.
Once the balance spring is removed, I carefully place it in the parts tray, jewel side down, to avoid damaging the delicate spring. After that, I turn the movement over to expose the keyless works and begin their disassembly.
See that part next to the spring? You’ve got the yellow gear, then another gear below it, and right beneath that sits the yoke. Normally, the yoke engages when you pull the crown — one position to set the time, the other to wind the movement. In most calibres, the yoke isn’t secured by a screw, as it needs to move freely up and down. So you can imagine my surprise when I spotted a screw head on this one. A closer look revealed it wasn’t a real screw at all — just a fake impression. The yoke can simply be lifted out.
With the keyless works disassembled, it’s time to flip the movement back over to the train side and begin removing the barrel bridge.
No issues with the barrel bridge this time — apart from the earlier surprise: no special marking to indicate the reverse-threaded screw.
Now comes the most troublesome part of them all — the gear train bridge. You might recall that I once mentioned a good indicator of thoughtful movement design is how easily the bridge aligns with the gear pivots. In a well-engineered calibre, each pivot seats neatly into its jewel, allowing the bridge to drop into place with minimal effort.
Now, think back to my ordeal with the Chinese 2813 movement, where aligning all the pivots beneath the bridge was nearly impossible. Although I had no intention of reassembling this Chaika movement, I could immediately foresee a similar problem the moment the bridge came off.
Probably only three or four people will ever read this far — but to those few, I want to say: thank you. Thank you for taking the time to look at my photos and read these lines.
Now, let’s take a closer look at all four gears.
You can also see the mainspring barrel, measuring 7 mm in diameter, along with the lever. And for the detail-oriented among you: the escape wheel — the only wheel finished in gray — measures exactly 3.3 mm in diameter.
And that’s all, folks — the movement is now fully disassembled.
Okay, I almost forgot to disassemble the mainspring barrel. Let’s remove the lid, unwind the mainspring, and place all the parts neatly on the watchmaking tray. What do you think?
Below, you can see all the components that make up the keyless works. The photo next to it shows the mainplate, the barrel bridge, the gear train bridge, and the pallet bridge. It’s worth noting that this movement has probably never been fully disassembled since it first left the factory.
Notice how clean those bridges are? I swear I didn’t clean them before taking these photos — nothing here has been cleaned.
I know I said earlier that I didn’t intend to reassemble this movement — and if I truly meant that, I probably shouldn’t have taken apart the mainspring barrel. Nevertheless, curiosity got the better of me, and I wanted to see if I could realign the gear train bridge. No surprises there — it’s a headache. A real headache, and a genuine test of one’s patience.
Disassembling and documenting this movement was a real pleasure. The lighting conditions couldn’t have been better, and the calibre proved to be in surprisingly fine shape for its age.
I hope you’ve enjoyed following this deconstruction as much as I enjoyed performing it.
Until next time — stay passionate people.
Kindly,
Olaaf
