16 px

In front of me are half a dozen hours that walked through life with me. Each of them has their own story, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and sometimes tragic. Here is the personal watch “Start” of my father Alexander Afanasyevich Nevsky. They were awarded to him in 1959 for the successful completion of the construction of the 100-kilometer Konosha-Velsk railway in the Arkhangelsk region.

For me, this is a valuable and only relic that I carefully preserve. My sister gave them to me in memory of our meeting after a long separation. Next in this gallery are the Commander watches. Back then the choice was small, and they attracted me with their proud name and design with military symbols.

Frankly, here, first of all, I liked the anchor — a symbol of hope. The fact is that I was born and raised by the sea. Sakhalin is my small homeland. I still wear a vest with pleasure and love all kinds of nautical paraphernalia and the songs “Brigantine”, “Well, what can I tell you about Sakhalin”…

The home library consists mainly of books on marine subjects, for example, “Anchors” by Lev Skryagin or “In the Wake of Sea Disasters”, the same author, “The Voyage to the Kon-Tiki” by Thor Heyerdahl and many others in the same spirit. I’ll share some interesting memories about the Polet watch. This was the period when I was actively involved in amateur tourism: I developed routes, collected tourists and led tourist groups on multi-day hikes as a leader. I had a watch with a signal, which was usually set at six o’clock in the morning.”

But not everyone liked to get up when the bell rang. Some women were especially aggressive because they wanted to sleep longer on vacation. They said: “We are not in the army” — and threatened to throw away this watch. But I continued to wear them until they stopped on their own.

This is such a true story. Here is a watch, please note, it was made to special order. The dial bears the inscription “Buryat energy system is 40 years old” against the background of the pearl of Siberia, Lake Baikal. I will say that this event was celebrated in 1998.

After they were handed over to me, they worked well for many years. Now I am an honorary veteran of the energy system. Next, my gaze is drawn to the watches with elegant covers. On their dial is the inscription “60 years of the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.”

The watch was given to me on the occasion of my 50th birthday. How long ago it was… They remind me of the years of work in the Administration of the Council of Ministers of the Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Remembering the past, I would like to say that the tradition of presenting personalized watches has survived to this day.

I was convinced of this when I learned that in one of the schools in our city, excellent students in their final classes were given watches. Commendable, of course. I’ll tell you the following story about one more case. Many years ago, traveling along the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula, we set up our camp in Zmeinaya Bay on the Chivyrkuisky Bay of Lake Baikal.

The camp was close to a mineral spring. It was Saturday, and the entire surrounding public came here on boats and motor boats to take hot baths. Why is the bay called Zmeinaya? Because here, near the hot springs, there live relict snakes that survived the Ice Age and now live quite comfortably with humans.

But let’s return to bath Saturday. Afterwards, on a pebble, I discovered a wristwatch forgotten by someone. I took them with me in the hope of returning them to the owner as soon as he showed up. But the owner did not appear either that evening or the next day.

I’ve been wearing them on my arm for several years, and maybe today the owner will finally respond. Everything, friends, happens in life. With this I would like to finish my story about different watches and the events that are hidden behind their hands.