Minsk Watch Plant “Luch”

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Minsk Watch Plant “Luch” was founded in 1953. The only watch factory in Belarus. 80% of the shares belong to the Swiss company Franck Muller International.

In 2023, a museum opened with a watch exhibition and a guided tour of the factory. The tour tells the history of the plant and shows the stages of production.

Machines cut out the watch blanks.

You can order a personal engraving.

It is possible to produce dials with your own design.

They showed the technology of dial printing. The process is neither simple nor fast. Each color is applied and baked one by one.

A design principle comes to mind: it doesn’t matter how complex or long the process is, only the result matters. If the result isn’t good, the process has no value, no matter how difficult it was.

The museum exhibition contains a collection of watches produced by the factory at different times. There are watches that parents used to wear.

Not far from the museum there is a brand store. It also sells watch models from the past.

Visiting the factory led to reflections on the place of analog wristwatches in the modern world. Mobile phones have taken over the function of telling time. Smartwatches have taken over the wristwatch market. Expensive analog watches exist as a status symbol. For ordinary wristwatches, their role is decoration and accessory. That means you need several to match different looks.

Rings, earrings, chains. And now watches are a decorative accessory, having lost their functional purpose.

I liked the idea of one-hand watches. Great for those who want to slow down their life.

Verdict: worth a visit.

11 February 2025