Purchased this the other day. Checked the dial today to test authenticity. Best condition I've seen these.


After 3 days of wandering around the Tirana university looking for a department with a Geiger counter to authenticate this watch, I met a physics professor who recommended a colleague to meet at a coffee shop. This Soviet watch (circa late 50s-early 60s, never commercially available and given only to Soviet cosmonauts and air force pilots--the first type of watch worn in space: Sturmanskie type 2) is highly radioactive from the radium dial, and is thus authentic (inside etc matches). The radium decays into radon gas, which are alpha particles, which are blocked by the crystal and even human skin, so if you don't go licking the dial it's generally safe-ish. However, if you wore this 24/7 for a year, it'd be like getting a few 10+ extra x-rays on your body.

Picture 2 gives the reading of gamma particles that escape the watch case.

Also photos of the back casing and interior mechanism. Anyone familiar with the serial numbers of Soviet watches know the exact date on this guy?

 

I may be wrong but the serial won't give you an exact date on those. Earlier 1st type models were easy, the date was clearly stamped.
On yours the sweep hand looks a bit short, maybe replaced?

 

From what I can tell, the second hand on the type 2 is shorter than the type 1 according to a buyers guide on watchuseek (see pic comparison below). Here's another photo of mine where you can see the second hand seems to match the type 2 length.

 

I think type 2 is also shorter because the dial is slightly smaller. It should go almost to the minute track for type 2, and up to the middle of the track for type 1 AFAIK.

But I would not hastily replace the hand, there may be variants. It's just that with the reflections on the plexi, I thought your hand was too short.

A resource I use: http://www.netgrafik.ch/airforce-watches10.htm