In the Soviet clock industry an Amfibia watch was what the west would call a "Diver" watch. Produced in great quantities for the Soviet and Russian military, these watches gained great popularity worldwide. The Vostok Amphibia or Raketa Amphibia are Russian diving watch created respectively in 1967 and 1968 for the USSR's navy.

The Amphibia design was led by Vostok's chief of their new design bureau. The objectives were to create a watch that was competitive with contemporary diving watch such as the Blancpain 50 Fathoms, the Rolex Submariner, and the watches using the compressor case, and to create a watch that could operate reliably at the temperature and pressure of a depth of 200 meters (and later 300 meters). The chief designers were Mikhail Fedorovich Novikov and Vera Fedorovna Belov.

The Amphibia is the embodiment of possibly the most simple concept for creating a watertight case. The basic principle is to use the outside pressure to create the seal needed to prevent water from entering the case. The further the case sinks, the higher the outside pressure, the higher pressure is exerted on the case, creating a dynamically tighter seal. This is opposed to the idea where you create a case that creates the pressure to withstand 20ATM of pressure no matter what pressure it experiences (1 ATM at sealevel, for instance). This is a design similar to the western compressor case, a patent for which was filed at least as early as 1954, and granted in '56(US pat. 2,737,009). The advantage of the compression design is that you do not need to tighten any of the seals to a pressure that would withstand 20ATM, it also eliminates several pieces required to create such a seal.

The Amphibia's crystal is 3mm thick lucite (50% thicker than standard) that is ground like a precision lens to create a very good size and seal. The lucite deforms plastically by a half millimeter under pressure whereas the slightest deformation of a glass or sapphire crystal would crack it. This allows a much lighter, smaller, cheaper crystal to be used. It also does not require the extra rubber seals and a very high pressure crystal retaining ring.

While a traditional caseback gasket would experience sheer forces with the rotation of a screwback case used for a traditional hermetic case that would leave the gasket permanently compressed, making it unable to return to its original shape and unsuitable for reuse, the Amphibia uses a very wide sintered gasket. This solved a problem found during the design where when surfacing, the gasket which had been compressed by 20-30% decompressed slower than the pressure on the caseback, critically weakening the seal. To fix the problem of the O-Ring sheer, they used a bayonet mount held in place by a nut. This use of a very large gasket distributes the force of the pressure which can be a problem with O-rings.

The case is made of stainless steel. The thickness of the caseback is 1MM, double the regular thickness. The crown screws down with a gasket to prevent water from entering from the stem opening. The stem incorporates a clutch to protect it from lateral forces. This clutch gives the stem a wobbly feel as it doesn't engage unless you pull the crown away from the watch.

The watch includes a rotating bezel which is used to mark the time you first submersed. The dial and hands also have luminescent so that the watch can be read in the darkness of ocean depths.

The Amphibia was first equipped with the Vostok 2209 movement, a manual wind movement with no calendar. Later models used the Vostok 2409 which added a date complication, and the 2416 which is an automatic movement that winds itself any time the watch is moved. The dateless version of the 2416, the 2415 was used in the reissue of the 1967 Amphibia.

There was a problem including traditional built in lugs with the new stainless steel Amphibia case, so for the first case design, model 350, fixed lugs were added on. Later versions included attached lugs that swung before they incorporated integral lugs to the case. Later model cases include the integral lug model (420), the hexagon case, the ministry case (710), and the new curvy 060, and the tonneau/paddle model.

All Antique watches are mechanical. Many repairs will not be cheap, as most likely they will require replacement of non-standard parts (unlike most late model watches).

• Antique watches should not be beaten or dropped - because repairs may be expensive.
• Antique watches are generally NOT waterproof. This is because waterproofing was not in general production until the middle of the 20th century for most watches. Therefore you should protect your antique watch from exposure to moisture.
• If your watch becomes wet it should be dried off quickly. Carefully open all covers and use a hair drier to blow dry the movement, dial, covers, crown. This will reduce the amount of rust.
• If your watch becomes wet with any kind of salt water you should immediately immerse or spray your watch with fresh (no-salt) water to remove all the salt from the works before drying the watch completely. Any salt left in the watch will combine with moisture in the air to rust metal components of the movement, case etc.
• Winding any mechanical watch tight may break the mainspring. If you can avoid it do not wind the watch hard.
• When adjusting the hands of your watch, move them in a clockwise direction only. Counter-clockwise adjustments may damage the movement. It is desirable to adjust the hands of your watch at the same time every day. An automatic or self-winding watch should be worn for at least 8 hours a day. It is a mechanical watch in which the mainspring is wound automatically as a result of natural motion of the wearer's arm, to provide energy to run the watch, making manual winding unnecessary.
• If you must adjust counter-clockwise make it for small adjustments only (i.e. for minutes, NOT hours).
• Be careful and gentle when adjusting the movement speed (faster or slower). Don't make sharp movements, and don't touch other components in the movement especially the pendulum mechanism.
• Every 2-3 years it is necessary to service and oil vintage watches. If the course of your watches is worsening and the accuracy of the reduction in the duration of the clock (autonomy) from one fully wound spring - it need a service.
• IF the watch is dirty - allow the watch to run down, don't wind it again until you have it serviced by a qualified watch repair expert. Dust will absorb and remove important lubricants and cause the movement pieces to wear down.
• To clean the case, dial and crystal you should use a cloth that does NOT leave fibers as these may get caught up in the movement. Check with your Watch repair expert to get an appropriate cloth.
• Keep your antiques watch away from magnets. Strong magnetic fields may affect the accuracy of your watch since some vintage watches were made with iron based components in the movement.
• Most Cases and Covers are fine components and will not handle abuse well. The watch should not be shaken, beaten, or stressed.
• Antique watches generally experience an error of up to 5-7 minutes a day. Any accuracy of +- 5 minutes is very good.
• Mechanical watch is not recommended to use for engage in extreme sports, and expose them to excessive vibration loads. Recoil force, which take on the clock, affect their reliability and precision. No matter how perfect was not anti-shock mechanism, there is always the chance of excessive load that details of the mechanism can not survive.
• Watch with calendar. It is not recommended to adjust, the date between 20.00 and 06.00, because at this time involved a mechanism for automatic adjustment date. Translation pointers calendars manually in this position arrows may damage the mechanism. Date changes should be made, relegating pre-clockwise to lower sector of the dial (for example, to position 6 (18.00) hours).
• Chronograph watches. In most cases, these watches contain the "start/stop" button and "reset" button. It is strongly recommended not to press the "reset" if the chronograph is running. Before you use the "Reset" button need to stop the chronograph by button "start/stop". Using the "reset" when running chronograph can damage the mechanism of most models of watches.

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