The Senility of Vladimir P. (2016)

Michael Honig's satirical novel, copyright 2015 and published in the United States by Pegasus Books in August 2016, is set some twenty years on, when the former Russian president Vladimir Vladimirovich, whom the jacket copy names as Vladimir Putin, lives out his dementia in his dacha, drifting in and out of his memories. His nurse, Nikolai Sheremetev, is the one honest man in a household whose staff skim what they can from their employer, until his nephew Pasha is jailed over something he wrote on the internet and Sheremetev needs a great deal of money fast. (Open Library)

Watches

Hublot (unidentified model): Sheremetev fastens a watch on Vladimir's wrist before an outing to the lake. When Dr Rospov examines the old man he loses count of the pulse under his fingers: the watch is a Hublot, and he cannot keep his eyes off it. Afterwards the doctor shows Sheremetev his own watch, which he calls a Breitling Chronospace and says cost him seven thousand dollars, and tells him that the one on the patient's wrist is far out of his league and was surely a present for a favour. A different Hublot is among the watches Sheremetev later takes to a dealer, who puts it at about seventy thousand dollars (p. 246). The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: ‘That’s a beautiful watch, Vladimir Vladimirovich.’ The doctor’s fingers were still on Vladimir’s pulse, but he was no longer counting. ‘A Hublot. Very nice.’ (Michael Honig, The Senility of Vladimir P., scan cataloged as Pegasus Books, 2016, p. 149, with the OCR's line-break hyphen in "counting" closed up; the doctor's own watch is on p. 150; Internet Archive scan OCR)

Rolex Daytona: Needing money to get his nephew out of jail, Sheremetev takes one watch from the cabinet in Vladimir's dressing room, wrapped in a handkerchief, to a watch shop in an alley off the Arbat. Anna Rostkhenkovskaya, who has run the shop since her father's death four weeks earlier, sees a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Daytona in gold and platinum on a gold strap, with baguette-cut diamonds in place of the hour markers and set into each hand. She has seen plenty of Daytonas and never one like it, and takes it for a bespoke piece, made to order by Rolex or altered afterwards by an expert watchmaker. The text names the Daytona and gives no reference.

Source text: What had come out of the handkerchief, to Rostkhenkovskaya’s surprise, was a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Daytona in gold and platinum with a gold strap. (Michael Honig, The Senility of Vladimir P., scan cataloged as Pegasus Books, 2016, p. 223; Internet Archive scan OCR)

Patek Philippe watch: On his next visit Sheremetev unwraps three more watches on Rostkhenkovskaya's counter: a Hublot, an emerald-faced watch whose maker the OCR gives as "Bruguet", and the one she recognises as the prize, a Patek Philippe by Tiffany in mint condition, of a kind she has heard of and never held, worth in her estimate no less than half a million dollars. She offers three hundred thousand. When he brings it back she has with her Aleksandr Belkin, introduced as an expert in Patek Philippes, who snatches the watch up and uses it, and the three already sold, to force Sheremetev to lead them to the whole cabinet (pp. 272 to 280). The text calls it a Patek Philippe by Tiffany and names no model.

Source text: But he had hit the jackpot with the third one, a Patek Philippe by Tiffany in mint condition. (Michael Honig, The Senility of Vladimir P., scan cataloged as Pegasus Books, 2016, p. 246; the offer is on p. 250 and Belkin's threat on pp. 279 to 280; Internet Archive scan OCR)