Juri Levenberg

Juri Levenberg

Founder & Managing Director

STRELA GmbH und Co KG Munich, Bavaria 🇩🇪
🏆 KEY ACHIEVEMENT
First and only registered trademark holder of STRELA® — the Soviet chronograph Leonov wore during the first spacewalk

A Soviet oceanographer who manufactured jeans during Perestroika then emigrated to care for disabled children in Munich. Within four years he had published the definitive Western book on Russian watches; within thirteen he was reviving a brand name the Soviet state had retired in 1964. Thirty years later, he has still never given an interview.

Background Soviet oceanographer and Diplom-Ingenieur from Riga; Perestroika jeans cooperative founder before emigration
Turning Point 1990: Emigrated to Munich as a caretaker — began building Russian watch expertise from nothing
Key Pivot Caretaker and book author → commissioned first modern Strela watches (2003); dealer becomes brand owner
Impact West's foremost authority on Russian watches; 20+ years building the only trademarked Strela revival

Before he revived the watch that went to space, Juri Levenberg was a trained oceanographer, a jeans manufacturer during Perestroika, and a caretaker for disabled children in Munich. His path to watchmaking ran through five Soviet cities and one collapsing empire.

STRELA GmbH und Co KG · Munich, Germany

The loss of circle of friends and family members did not make it easier.

— Juri Levenberg, Founder, STRELA Watches

Born in Soviet Ukraine and raised near the Arctic Circle in Siberia, Levenberg studied oceanology at Leningrad State University and earned a Diplom-Ingenieur from Riga Polytechnic Institute in Latvia. During Glasnost, he founded REFEKO — a textile cooperative producing jeans, goods simply unavailable in Soviet consumer markets. The instinct was to find the gap and fill it. That instinct would define everything that followed.

In 1989, a tourist visa to West Germany became a permanent decision. Levenberg arrived in Munich in 1990 with his family. Soviet engineering credentials had no direct value in the German labour market; he worked as a Krankenpfleger, a caretaker in a home for disabled children. “This began the building of a completely new life in a completely unknown environment,” he wrote later. “The loss of circle of friends and family members did not make it easier.”

During those years he channelled his connection to his former homeland into an obsessive study of Russian mechanical watches. By 1994, the caretaker had become a published author: Russische Armbanduhren und Taschenuhren, published by Callwey Verlag Munich, was the first comprehensive Western reference on Soviet horology. By 1997 he had founded a watch dealing company. By 2003 he was commissioning new Strela chronographs from a factory in Moscow — establishing himself as the sole registered trademark holder of a brand name the Soviet watch industry had retired in 1964.

He has never given a published interview.