Volna Typhoon Siberia SHCI Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Dec 18th 2009 at 12:02PM

Volna is a luxury watch brand with an interesting slogan - "Russian Heritage Swiss Made." As a luxury watch maker their theme is giant paradox as the Swiss concept of luxury and Soviet Russia are concepts that clash. But ignore that little issue for a moment and you have a unique design niche for a luxury watch maker. In the red tinted vision of old Soviet era military technology, is a brand that celebrates the look and feel of that style of military nationality. In a country where often times the military elite got paid in medals versus money, their military equipment at least needed to have an impressive look and feel.

Volna watches are all about attempting to rethink and recreate that image. The brand's newest watch is the Typhoon Siberia SHCI - a cool if not gimmicky means of adding something fun to the luxury sports chronograph watch segment. The name of the watch sounds like a foreign translation of a Hollywood action movie that might be called "Siberian Storm" - that somehow ends up "Typhoon Siberia." This new model is all in a very good type of grade 5 (G5) titanium and has a unique system that Volna has developed. Strap is rubber.

An irony of many chronograph diving watches is that operating the chronograph too deep underwater will damage the watch by letting water in. So Volna has developed a "Security Hand Chronograph Indicator" (SHCI) that displays a message on the dial of whether or not the chronograph is locked or unlocked for use. Locking it is done vial a turning lever located on the crown.

The watch case is 46.5mm wide and water resistant to 300 meters. There is a propeller engraved into the caseback and the crown. The dial is in black with decorative satin finished ruthenium plates and either red or black on black numerals and hands. Inside the watch is a Swiss Automatic movement that is likely a modified ETA. There are two versions of the watch (red on black or black on black dials), with limited editions of 125 pieces each. Not too sure about price, but it is over $10,000 per watch.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: luxury, Russia, SCHI, Soviet, Swiss, Typhoon Siberia, TyphoonSiberia, Volna, watch