This is a Poljot watch which was specially made for the Murmansk Shipping Company. The Murmansk Shipping Company was founded in 1939 and was specialized in arctic transportation. Throughout the years they had an impressive fleet of Icebreaking vessels.

This watch is all about one of them. The first ever nuclear powered Icebreaker “Lenin” (in Cyrillic ленин). The ship went into service in 1959 and had to clear the ice for cargo vessels along Russia’s Northern Sea Route. The ship was in the fleet for 30 years (1959-1989) and covered a total distance of more than 654.000 nautical miles. That’s the equivalent of traveling to the moon, back to the earth and back to the moon again!


















 
 
 
 
 




























On the dial there is a picture of the ship supported with the tekst : “30 лет атомному ледоколу ленин” or 30 year nuclear icebreaker Lenin.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The light blue ring with dark blue numbers and the ship crushing through the ice really gives the watch an arctic feeling. The case of the watch contains a 17 Jewels 2614.2H movement. 

Now the most interesting part is the inscription on the back.
It says; “to participant of first crew (гурко нр) Gurko NP from Main Shipping Governance Murmansk town 1989”. This inscription makes me believe that the watch has been given to Mr. Gurko in 1989 by the Governance of the Murmansk Shipping Company after the company took the ship out of services.

























I found this Russian website (polarpost.ru) with a copy of a book about the icebreaker released by the Murmansk publisher in 1980. In the book I found the picture of 1960 with the first crew, and within the picture second to the left; Mr. Gurko! A couple of pages further on in the book I found the second picture of Mr. Gurko behind a panel on the ship.