Vostok Amphibia 090SE

The Vostok Amphibia with the 090 case is another variation on the the many types of Vostok Amphibia Russian diver’s watch. The Vostok Amphibia SE 0902685 (SE = Special Edition) is a recent release which I picked up from Meranom earlier this year. The 090 case is what I would describe as tonneau type case, described by Wikipedia as “a type of watch case, with rounded, bulging sides resembling a barrel (or cask).” It is larger than the standard Vostok Amphibia cases, about the same width as, but longer than, the 710 Ministry case and clocks in at a pretty chunky 41 x 48mm, with 22m lugs. The watch body is made from stainless steel and it is fitted with Vostok’s 2416 automatic movement with 31 jewels. It is waterproof to 200m. Unlike the chromed brass bezels of the classic Amphibias, I believe this one is stainless steel (Bezel 090 at Meranom). Dave Murphy Manufacturing also manufactures a bezel for the 090 and I have just fitted one, with a red Seiko bezel insert, onto one of my other 090s.

This is just about the only Vostok on which I have kept the original, in this case, rubber / silicon strap. I normally change them for a Nato or decent leather strap straight away, but this one is pretty comfortable. The only other Vostok I have kept on the original strap is the Vostok Amphibia 960SE Neptune I recently acquired, which has a pretty good quality bracelet.

So what are the differences between the standard 090s and the Vostok Amphibia SE 090368S watches? Well, as far as I can work out, there is the rather funky orange dial, the hands and the caseback. The dial is a very nice orange colour, but it has a metallic, bronze-y quality to it, that gives it a certain shimmering quality in the light. Additionally the numbers and indices are slightly raised, they are not on the standard 090s. The dial also has “Boctok” written on it in cyrillic script instead of the “Amphibia” on the normal 090s. I am a sucker for the paddle-type hands – the normal 090s have the usual Vostok Amphibia “arrow” type hands”. It also sports an orange second hand instead of the normal red second hand. If Vostok were to sell these paddle hands separately I would probably switch the hands out on a lot of my Amphibias. There must be a market for this, you just have to see the number of different aftermarket hands you can buy for Seiko Divers modding. I would love some snowflake hands that fit an Amphibia, for example. I have also just noticed the SE bezel has a dot of lume on it that the standard 090s don’t. The other major difference is the CCCP / Cosmonaut caseback instead of the standard Vostok Amphibia caseback (see below). I don’t know what the Russian says, if you can translate please feel free to contact me.

All in all a great watch and I like the size of this on my nearly 8 inch wrist. I find some of the Amphibia classics sometimes look a bit small. Please excuse the poor quality lume shot!