Strela 1965 Owner Review : Pure, balanced and mineral

Listen while reading: Aphex Twin - Polynomial-C. This Strela Blue Sky pays tribute to the Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. On March 19, 1965, he became the first human to perform a spacewalk during the Voskhod II mission. “I was stepping into the unknown, and no one in the world could tell me what I would encounter. I had no instruction manual. It was the first time. But I knew it had to be done [...]. I climbed out of the hatch without hurrying and carefully extricated myself. I moved away from the spacecraft little by little [...]. The silence was awe-inspiring, so heavy and so profound that I began to hear the sounds of my own body [...]. The Earth seemed small, blue, clear, so tender, so lonely. It was our home, and I had to defend it like a sacred relic. It was perfectly round.” I don't think I ever knew what "round" meant until I saw Earth from space. It was the return to the spacecraft that posed a problem: the sudden drop in pressure in space caused his spacesuit to inflate, preventing him from entering the airlock. Time was of the essence because his oxygen supply was dwindling; he would have to deflate it himself using a valve, risking a gas embolism if the decompression was too rapid. He entered headfirst, not feet first as the procedure required, but he was saved! "Strela" means "arrow" in Russian; Alexei Leonov wore a Poljot Strela chronograph during this mission. Specs: 3 ATM water resistance, 40 mm diameter, 11.8 mm height, 47 mm lug to lug. Poljot manual caliber 2609, 2.5Hz, 40-hour power reserve. The strap is a 20mm Vostok, which is very comfortable and adjustable to the millimeter. The dial appealed to me more than the case, which is rather generic. The outer edge features the blue of the cosmos, while the center represents the Earth with the equator between 9 and 3 o'clock. The northern hemisphere is brushed vertically, while the southern hemisphere is brushed horizontally. This configuration, with the blue border, visually slims the watch; at 40mm, it looks smaller on my slender wrist. The Cyrillic inscriptions are essential to me; it's this characteristic of Russian watches that I appreciate. The export models with the Latin alphabet, which were sold in the West during the Soviet era, don't interest me at all. (See my review of my Raketa Baltika.) "Strela 17 jewels, manual caliber 2609, made in Russia" On the case back: "Strela, First Hours of Cosmos Discovery 1965". My presentation at the La Baule Meetup in summer 2025: https://m.youtube.com/shorts/UVr7B2KeBDo