Maksim Sushkov

Maxim Sushkov is a self-taught Russian watchmaker whose fascination with horology began at 25, when he came across a vintage gold-plated Ruhla watch from East Germany — by his own account, love at first sight, and the turning point that set the direction of his life. With no engineering degree, he taught himself the craft from the ground up: buying watches, taking them apart, studying every component, setting up a small workshop at home, reading everything he could find, and seeking out other enthusiasts. As he puts it, 'the most important thing for a watchmaker is a deep and genuine interest in the craft.'

That self-directed study turned into a professional career in 2012, when he became lead specialist for high-end watch repair at the top service center in Chișinău, Moldova. In 2015 he was invited to take on a similar role in Saint Petersburg, eventually rising to head of the service center while continuing to personally handle the most complex work that came through — perpetual calendars, minute repeaters, and tourbillons from brands including A. Lange & Söhne, Chopard, and Ulysse Nardin. Alongside that work he began experimenting with his own projects, starting with a skeletonized movement built on a Soviet-era base caliber; the experience set him on a clear path toward opening an independent workshop of his own. As demand grew for his handmade dials, hands, and movement components, balancing that work with his service-center responsibilities became unsustainable, and in 2019 he founded the Maxim Sushkov brand to focus on his own watchmaking full time.

Every Maxim Sushkov watch is bespoke and made by hand, with components — dials, hands, bridges, even individual screws — fabricated, finished, and assembled entirely in his workshop, decorated with black polishing, anglage, perlage, and hand engraving, flame-blued steel, grand feu enamel, and galvanic plating, with CNC guilloché engraving available on dials. To date he has delivered 40 unique watches, each built around reworked ETA or Peseux base calibers with custom-designed and handmade bridges, plates, and wheels specific to that piece, while an in-house movement of his own design — with time and power-reserve indication — is currently in development. His named models illustrate the range of his dial and case work: the Classic Green, with a brass dial in dual-pattern guilloché under gold and silver galvanic plating, a malachite-green center, and applied numerals with three-dimensional, black-polished hands; the Rainbow, with a mother-of-pearl dial and a titanium, fine-guilloché small-seconds disc; and the Classic Burgundy, with a gold-and-silver electroplated brass dial in burgundy, Eastern Arabic numerals, and a movement finished with mirror black polishing and heat-blued accents. Across all three, cases are 39–41mm stainless steel with sapphire crystals and 30m water resistance, with manually wound movements running at 18,000 vph and 40–46 hours of power reserve.