This piece recalls how the self-taught Russian watchmaker burst onto the world stage in Haute Horlogerie.

 

Seventeen years ago, Konstantin Chaykin built a tourbillon almost from scratch. It was only the second tourbillon made in Russia and was created 175 years after the first one if we're to believe the 1829 report published in the Russian literary magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski.

 

The report claimed Ivan Tolstoy was the first Russian master to make a chronometer tourbillon pocket watch. It’s too late now to prove whether or not the watch was actually made. In any case, Konstantin Chaykin proved to himself and enthusiasts of haute horlogerie the world over that complicated mechanical timepieces can be made in Russia.

 

He created another tourbillon in the shape of a carriage clock — an expression of his admiration for works by the great Abraham-Louis Breguet and inventor of this type of clock. The Russian watchmaker’s next move was unprecedented.

He refused to follow in the footsteps of watchmakers in other countries, who predominantly manufactured timepieces with movements and complications that were invented a long time ago. In 2005, Chaykin realized it was something else that attracted him to watchmaking — the possibility of inventing watch mechanisms which had never seen before.

 

I'd find it boring to repeat things which were invented a long time ago. After my first two pieces, I thought about making a timepiece with fusée-and-chain transmission, a perpetual calendar and a tourbillon.

 

But spring outside the window suddenly had me thinking about why Easter falls on a different date every year...

 

Chaykin's thorough research into the history of the Easter calendar led him to the discovery that no one had made a timepiece which could display the moving date for Eastern Orthodox Easter. This was a challenge he couldn't pass up.

 

Table Clock Tourbillon Prototype, 2004
Table Clock Tourbillon Prototype, 2004
Archive photo of the inventor, 2005
Archive photo of the inventor, 2005

The result of Chaykin's calculations and lengthy research into the subject was the first opto-mechanical Orthodox Easter date display in the history of watchmaking. The watchmaker is proud of his achievement, as bringing this calendar function to life was an extremely difficult thing to do.

 

The first unique display wasn't the most convenient to use. It was built into the case of the compact  Easter of Christ Computus Clock made in 2005, which measured 220 × 120 ×120 mm. In theory, this problem could easily be fixed with a larger clock, but Chaykin became increasingly interested in the process of implementing new ideas in itself.

 

After finding a solution, Chaykin needed to start thinking about protecting his intellectual property. His invention was officially patented on September 20, 2007, and the watchmaker now has 89 patents under his belt, placing him among Russia’s most prolific inventors and the world’s most innovative watchmakers.

 

This has been acknowledged by the Russian Federal Service for Intellectual Property, commonly known as Rospatent, which put Chaykin forward as a candidate World Intellectual Property Organization's WIPO Medal for Inventors. He was awarded the medal in 2021 after a short delay due to Covid-19 restrictions.

 

Chaykin was apparently the world's first watchmaker to be awarded the WIPO Medal for Inventors, at least there's no information available to prove otherwise. There was no going back once Konstantin Chaykin had unleashed his inner inventor.

 

He was no longer interested in just making a bigger clock to house the Easter date display he'd invented. The idea he came up with instead was to make a fully mechanical indication with a hand made using traditional watchmaking techniques.

 

 

The first invention was officially patented on September 20, 2007. The watchmaker now has 89 patents under his belt.

 

This type of indication would obviously be more convenient for the clock's owner, although the mechanism for driving for this "simple" display turned out to be a fairly complicated one.

 

Developing the construction was a time-consuming process, and Chaykin only applied to have his new purely mechanical date display for Eastern Orthodox Easter patented in 2007.

 

Mechanically computing the date for Easter is no simple task. The most complicated of constructions, comprised of more than 300 components, was required to be able to do so in a compact table-clock movement (including a triad of cam wheels, three counting levers, racks and three planetary gears).

 

Konstantin Chaykin Computus Easter clock, 2015
Konstantin Chaykin Computus Easter clock, 2015

The specs for one of the most complicated mechanisms to drive a single hand were a first in the history of watchmaking. The first clock to house the fully mechanical date display with a hand for Orthodox Easter was the Resurrection Computus Clock made in 2007. But the watchmaker didn't stop there:

 

 We developed a clock, that was great. But I wanted to continue working on the movement to improve it somehow. I analyzed how the Easter module was working and understood that energy loss could be reduced by making the functional components lighter.

 

I replaced brass parts with parts made of duralumin in critical places, and it worked. Apart from that, energy needed to run the Orthodox Easter date indication module, activated once a year, was built up over the course of an entire year. 


This was also an unnecessary drain to the clock movement. I made radical changes to the construction so that energy would only be drawn directly from the mainspring barrel when the Easter module is activated.

 

Konstantin Chaykin Moscow Comptus Easter Clock, 2016
Konstantin Chaykin Moscow Comptus Easter Clock, 2016

The updated version of the Eastern Orthodox Easter date display was used in the Northern Computus Clock in 2015, then in the Moscow Computus Clock made in 2016. The Moscow Computus Clock is the most complicated mechanical timepiece ever created in Russia.

 

It incorporates a total of 26 additional complicated mechanical functions and mechanisms, for which 2506 parts were needed to assemble the movement. Konstantin Chaykin is confident:

 

The Easter date(Computus) is the rarest and one of the most complicated clock-movement functions. It required digging deeper into the history of the calculation, studying the astronomical background, studying what watchmakers have already done and how they did it.

 

 At the end of the day, it was also necessary to transform their ideas into mechanical devices, make all the components, apply their final finishing, assemble and adjust them.

 

Konstantin Chaykin Decalogue Luah Shana
Konstantin Chaykin Decalogue Luah Shana
Konstantin Chaykin Hijra
Konstantin Chaykin Hijra

The Easter clocks sparked the Konstantin Chaykin interest in the subject of traditional religious calendars and systems for marking the passage of time. He has since created many other complicated constructions in this genre. The traditional Jewish system for keeping time into the Decalogue, Decalogue Rega and Decalogue Luah Shana wristwatches, as well as using the Islamic Lunar Hijri calendar in the Lunar Hijra Clock table clock and the Hijra wristwatch.

 

The most complicated timepiece in terms of watch mechanics was the project to create the Shabbat Clock, which runs while taking the restrictions imposed on the Jewish day of rest into account. Given that no adjustments are allowed to be made to the clock during Shabbat, Konstantin Chaykin invented a complicated mechanism which automatically checks whether the clock has been sufficiently wound to keep running on the day of rest.

 

Konstantin Chaykin Shabat Clock Carved Wood, 2013
Konstantin Chaykin Shabat Clock Carved Wood, 2013

 

Based on the answer to that question, the "Shabbat" function will either keep the clock running until the end of Saturday or stop it before the day of rest begins. Timepieces equipped with these kinds of logical mechanical devices are extremely rare. One example of a similar function can be found in minute repeaters, known as the all-or-nothing piece.

 

This invention is a recognizable element of Konstantin Chaykin's timepieces. In the early days of his career back in 2007, Chaykin expanded his line of tourbillon table clocks by building what was and may still be the world's smallest tourbillon table clock wound by a traditional key.

 

 

 

The Easter clocks sparked the Konstantin Chaykin interest in the subject of traditional religious calendars and systems for marking the passage of time.

It was called the Ant’s Tourbillon Sapphire Clock. That was the same year when Chaykin had the idea of making his clock transparent. In order to do so, he began making plates from colorless sapphire crysta and was apparently the first to use this material in a table clock. Chaykin began working on the curious Mystery 1000 Jewels wristwatch with a transparent dial in 2008.

 

Apart from the essential hour and minute hands for these types of watches on transparent sapphire crystal disks, he created a unique movement which had the additional complicated functions of a planisphere (map of the starry sky) and an annual calendar, also rendered in a "mysteriously" transparent design.

 

Konstantin Chaykin Mystery 1000 Jewels
Konstantin Chaykin Mystery 1000 Jewels

No one had produced anything like these complicated "mysterious" wristwatches. In order to minimize the friction which occurs when keeping time on a sapphire dial, Chaykin developed three peripheral bearings using 954 miniature spherical ruby jewels to mount the rotating sapphire disks for the transparent dial's "mysterious" indicators.

 

In order to minimize the friction which occurs when keeping time on a sapphire dial, Chaykin developed three peripheral bearings using 954 miniature spherical ruby jewels to mount the rotating sapphire disks for the transparent dial's "mysterious" indicators. Added to the the movement's 66 traditional jewels, that's a total of 1020 jewels — a world record to this day for the number of functional stones used in a wristwatch.