Many years ago, during the USSR, collecting in the country was prohibited. People were forbidden to collect coins, jewelry and art, but my dad was a watchmaker and became interested in collecting wristwatches - mechanical only.
For many years he collected his collection, which included mechanical watches of Asian countries, which were brought to Mariupol by sailors and he bought them from them or changed them. For all the time, my father has collected an impressive collection of watches, more than 400 different mechanical watches: Swiss Made Watches, Various Watches from Europe, Japanese and, of course, USSR watches... But in July 2021, my dad died of covid, and the collection remained with my mother and me..
At the end of February some very bad guys started a war in Ukraine, and my mother and I managed to evacuate from Mariupol with the help of soldiers in March, just a few days before the bombing of the Mariupol Drama Theater, in which we were waiting for evacuation...
The only value we managed to take from Mariupol is the collection of watches that remained with us from dad. And now, being in a relatively safe area of Ukraine (Dnepr Region), we are forced to sell watches from dad's collection...