Buyalov RR02 Akula Watch Review

The Buyalov RR02 Akula was the third watch to be released by Buyalov Watches and was released in Summer 2020. As any Vostok watch fan probably already knows, the man behind Buyalov Watches is Dmitry Buyalov. Buyalov has been the designer at Vostok Watches since the early 2000s. He is also the man behind the Meranom website and their sought after special edition releases. According to the description at Meranom the Buyalov RR02 Akula owes some of its design cues to the “totally indestructible 5-ChM submarine wall clock“.

The RR02 Akula is the third model released by Buyalov Watches. As of September 2020 it joins two other models, the similarly styled Radioroom RR01 and the bronze cased Airship Italia Type-B, to bring the number of ranges of Buyalov watches to three. I didn’t purchase the Airship Italia Type-B model but I did pick up a Radioroom RR01 and you can read my review of the white / orange coloured RR01 model here. The Buyalov RR02 Akula broadly shares the design of the Radioroom RR01, it is of a similar shape and size and has a similar strap attachment method. Whilst the RR01 has a carbon fibre encompassed stainless steel case the RR02 case is solid 316L stainless steel.

There are a four different RR02 models, with four different dial colours – blue, black / orange, black red and silver. Each model is available with two different strap attachment methods, either with the same rubber strap attachment method as the RR02, fixed with a couple of hex screws (approximately 4mm in diameter), or with a metal link that attaches to the stainless steel body with hex screws allowing for the attachment of a specially designed Buyalov leather strap. I opted for the rubber strap option, the same as on my Radioroom RR01, as I find it to be a very comfortable strap set up. The strap is soft and supple with a Buyalov signed buckle. The leather strap, attachment links, hex screws and corresponding Allen keys are all available to purchase separately so that the rubber and leather straps can be easily interchanged. Another reason I opted for the rubber strap is that the leather strap attaches like a Neptune strap, with a notch out of the centre, which is not my favourite style.

The RR02 Akula case is quite large. I don’t have a problem with it on my 7 1/2 inch wrist but you might find it a bit large if you have a smaller wrist. It is at the very limit of size for me, I can’t imagine myself wearing a larger watch. As mentioned above the case is solid 316L stainless steel. It tapers from top to bottom. The case diameter is 43.3 mm, without crown, at the top flaring out to 46.6 mm at the bottom. It sits relatively high on the wrist at 16.4 mm deep and measures 56.3 mm lug to lug. The case is decorated with four grooves going around the bottom of the case with a single blue coloured groove, to match the dial, at the top of the case.

The bezel features 8 hex type screws, I don’t know if they are removeable, I haven’t tried and I can’t see why anyone would want to remove them anyway. I would say they are more decorative than anything and have a diameter of around 3mm. I do find these can catch a little sometimes. The case is lightly brushed except for 6 scalloped out parts of the bezel which have a more matt finish. The flat crystal is approximately 34mm across and is made from anti-glare sapphire glass.

The RR02 features two crowns. The crown at 2 o’clock is for setting the time whilst the crown at 4 o’clock is for setting the internal rotating bezel. The crowns are quite substantially sized with a diameter of approximately 9 mm across and a depth of around 5 mm. The crown at 4 o’clock had a blued crown tube, to match the dial, a nice design feature, whilst the top crown tube is plain stainless steel. The screw down crowns have a simple circular groove cut out of their head end and there are deep, grippy grooves around the outside which allows for easy loosening and tightening. They crowns do protrude from the case a fair bit but I haven’t really had any issues with them digging into the wrist or catching on anything I have been wearing.

The stainless steel case back is pretty cool looking. It features a fierce looking shark logo which goes with the rather aggressive overall look of the watch. The raised parts of the case back are polished whilst the indentations are have a matt finish. Akula is the Russian word for shark. It also happens to be the name of the Soviet Akula class of nuclear powered attack submarines. Sharks? Nuclear subs? I guess this was never going to a gentle design!

The case back features the following information: Buyalov RR02, Stainless Steel, Sapphire, NH37A Japan, 200m and the individual number of watch. Mine is 43 out of a run of 500 pieces, 43/500. Although the watch takes it design cues from Russia and is designed by a Russian, it has a Japanese movement at its heart. The NH37A movement is made by Seiko. It is an automatic, 24 jewel movement which beats at 21,600 bph with a power reserve of 41 hours. This movement has central hour, minute, seconds hands, a date wheel and extra 24 hour indicator. It also features Seiko’s patented Diashock anti-shock system. The NH37A is a variation on the NH35, one of the world’s most popular automatic movements, the movement of choice for all sorts of microbrand watches. Wearing non-hacking Vostok watches most of the time, it makes a pleasant change to have a hacking movement with a quick date change function.

The Akula dial is a textured dark, navy blue colour and appears to be carbon fibre, or at least I assume it is carbon fibre. Meranom’s website says that it is fibreglass, something lost in translation I would think. Around the very outside of the the dial is the rotating inner bezel that is adjusted using the crown at 4 o’clock. The bezel has a inverted orange triangle at 12 o’clock with a big lume pip in the middle. The anodized aluminum bezel insert is dark blue from 12 o’clock to 3 with a silver, stainless steel colour for the remainder. The blue portion has the numerals 5, 10 and 15 in white with seconds intervals inbetween. The steel coloured portion has 20, 30, 40 and 50 markers in black and small black markers midpoint between each numeral. Inside the rotating bezel is a slight raised outer rim for the minutes markers with moderately large, raised, lumed blocks for the hour markers. There is a slightly smaller marker at the 6 o’clock marker due to the date window. The date window has a stainless steel surround and the date wheel is black with white numerals. Inside 3 o’clock the dial features the words Buyalov, Automatic and 200m.

The last notable feature of the dial is a sunken sub dial sitting inside the 9 and 10 o’clock markers.. I recall reading somewhere that the dial has a sandwich style construction and, looking at the sub dial, I suppose this would make sense. This is a small 24 hour dial, the single hand rotates once in 24 hours. With the moving internal bezel it can be used to monitor a second time zone. The sub dial face is a white colour with a concentric, circular pattern and black numeral markers 24, 6, 12 and 18. The sub dial also has a coloured surround, the top half is blue, the bottom half is red, maybe orange to match the colouring of the minutes and seconds hands, it is hard to tell. The dial might at first sound a bit cluttered, but it is fairly easy to read and certainly not as busy as the dial of my previous review, the Komandirskie K39, for example.

As you can see from the lume shot above, the BGW9 Superluminova is very bright and has a blue / green colour. The hour and minute hands are the same design as the RR01. Whilst the hands of the RR01 are black, the hands in the RR02 model are stainless steel. They are solid looking baton type hands. Both hour and minute hands have a good amount of central lume. The hour hand has a black design near the centre whilst the minute hand has bit of orange colouration near the centre with a small bit of orange near the tip. The seconds hand has a arrow shaped lumed point which is outlined in orange. All of the hands reach towards the edge of the dial and corresponding markers making reading the time nice and easy. The sub dial hand is a slight tapered baton again with good lume. I wonder why this is tapered and not straight to match the design of the hour and minute hands.

Overall, the Buyalov Akula RR02 has a decidedly sporty look to it, certainly sportier than the RR01 which I think has more of a “classic depth gauge” feel. The blue faced model, reviewed here, is perhaps the most summer-y looking model which was one of the reasons I chose this model. In my opinion the splash of blue give the watch a bit more character than the silver or black dials. There is no getting away from the fact that this is a large watch, it does sit high on the wrist and the crowns do protude quite a bit, but I don’t have a problem with this. It is not a watch that is going to fit very well under a shirt cuff or sleeve but, let’s face it, was never designed to be a “dress” watch. I have only worn it a handful of times but I have had a couple comments (albeit from other watch nerds) it already. Whilst the Akula is fairly chunky and brutal looking it really does catch the the eye. It is a great, fun watch and makes me smile whenever I look at it!

What do I buy next? Another of the RR02s with a different coloured dial? Or the Airship Italia Type B to complete the Buyalov set?

Purchased from Meranom in August 2020 at $276.00., approximately £214.00.