Vostok Komandirskie K-34 Automatic

This is rapidly becoming one of my favourite watches. This particular Vostok Komandirskie K-34 Automatic, model 2426/350006, is a lot of watch for the money, if you can find one in stock somewhere. Mine came from www.komandirskie.com, at a very good price.

Firstly, let me say, this is nothing like the standard Vostok Komandirskie or Amphibia watches, this is a big, heavy and solid watch, and, unlike the standard watches, has a very good leather strap (20mm) with butterfly deployment clasp. The clasp features a nice bit of  branding with the Komandirskie star and chevrons logo which can also be found at the 3 o’clock position on the watch face.  The build quality is good – the case is a nice-looking 42mm stainless steel case with nice clean lines and the lume on the hands and indices is superluminova which is a big step up from the lume on normal Amphibias and ‘Dirksies. Apparently some K-34 models are, or were, titanium but, alas, this is not one of them. There is also quite a range of Vostok Komandirskie K-34  quartz watches available, but I’m not a big quartz watch fan.

This particular Vostok Komandirskie K-34 is fitted with the self-winding Vostok 2426 movement (32 jewels, 19,800 bph, a variation of the 2416) and, alongside the standard hours, minute and second hands there is a secondary 24 hour (GMT) hand. This sweeps the face once every 24 hours. In addition to the 24 hour hand there are also two crowns. There is the standard crown, with the Vostok “B” logo, at 3 o’clock for winding the watch (if necessary) and changing the time. Then there is another crown (plain this time) at 8 o’clock which rotates the inner 24 hour bezel. If you use these in conjunction you have a second time zone. There is a great explanation of how to use a GMT watch at The GMT Watch Manual. You can also find this movement in some of the Vostok Europe watches like the Gaz 14 Limousine, Tu-144 and the Rocket N1.

The watch face is black with red and white markings. As mentioned before there is an inner bezel with 24 x 1 hours graduations, numbers in red with a red pip between them. Inside this, on the actual watch face are the 12 lumed hour markers with red minute divisions. Other markings on the watch face are “Komandirskie Automatic” below the 12, the aforementioned Komandirskie star and chevrons logo at 3, GMT between 6 and 7 and “Made in Russia” between 4 and 5.

The Vostok Komandirskie K-34 2426/350006 also has a quite nice glass exhibition case back, even if the window is a little small, through which one can see the movement and the darker metal, etched, patterned rotor. The inscriptions on the back of the case  are the words Komandirksie, Vostok Watch Makers Inc, Russian Watches Ltd, Stainless Steel, 100m Water Resistant and Model No.34 – so I think that pretty much covers all bases. The watch crystal is mineral glass.

A great watch for the money. Really underrated. Personally I think it has much nicer styling than many of its Vostok Europe cousins with great, vintage military-inspired design. The only thing I would ask for to improve this would possibly be a date window, I always get lost without one! You know, writing about this Vostok Komandirskie K-34 Automatic now just means I want to pick up model 346009 with the 2415.02 movement (but I am always a little wary of PVD cases!).

Notes:

Very difficult to photograph the dial on this watch! It looks much better in the flesh.

There is a great photo-set of someone servicing the Vostok 2426 movement here.