oldcrap.org says:

The concept was probably inspired by first pulsar watches, but the way the mechanism works and how it is built indicate it is not a direct copy but rather own engineering attempt. The three recessed buttons for setting the time additionally to a regular fourth button is an abundance not seen elsewhere. I suppose the Western manufacturers quickly optimized the design to save costs and resulted with one or even no special buttons for setting the watch. However, the quality of the manufacturing of the board is in my opinion exceptionally good, perhaps it comes from times when it was some strategic project to the Soviet race for domination. Further developments of home computers that I own are just miserably poor quality and indicate an ubiquitous shortage of everything needed to manufacture electronics.