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Orders (except 1985 OPW 1st & 2nd Class, unless you have the name of the recipient) and medals (Bravery Medal and Combat service Medal) with serial numbers or a document with the repients name are usually researchable. Some early Labour Medals are researchable. Normally you can get the Award Record Card (ARC), Citation(s), Service or Personnel files and often the photo from the Service records. Service and personnel files were not kept and are not available for the Enlisted ranks. There are individuals that will do translation. Fees for research and translation vary depending on who is doing it. It is always nice to get the story of the person behind the Order or Medal. If you have any questions about
Soviet research PLEASE post them here.
DocThere are two researchers (whose names we don’t post publically) who can do this work (or have one of their contacts do it). One can do anything (documented, undocumented, and some early labor awards, sometimes); the other researcher can do documented items, where the name is known and serial number research. Recently, things have gotten rather slow and rocky, as major staff changes at the archives have required reestablishing contacts. Anyone who has ever done any archival reserach can guess the problems when all the people you have worked with for years suddenly vanish.
No KGB and few Naval awards can be researched, though there are exceptions. Likewise, awards to veterans still living usually can’t be researched because their records haven’t been transferred to the archives. Some files, of course, have been lost or thrown out and some have been SOLD to foreigners since the collapse.
A fascinating seminar presentation on this topic was given at the OMSA meetings a few years back.
Right now there are two people. If you have the name of the person who received the award or just the serial number Contact Alexei Merezhko: http://pweb.netcom.com/~merezhko/militaria.html. Translation services are available from Paul Schmitt. His contact information is on Alexei’s website.
The Red Banner of Labor and Order of the Badge of Honor can be researched, at least they could be back in the distant days when research came out predictably.
With just a serial number, nothing can be done. If you have a documented item, early (pre-1943 or so) awards (basically, a screwback award) can sometimes be traced, but it isn’t easy or cheap or certain. And, of course, the current "bump" in the research hurts here as well.
The problem, I fear, is that with the unidimensional fixation among many collectors on things military, no one has gone knocking on the doors of the relevant archives to gain access and to learn to use those records.
The Red Banner of Labor and Order of the Badge of Honor 1930-1941 can install the full name, and the decree, which was awarded.
ORIGINALLY POSTED BY 1977
It is fantastic!
Free.
while only 41 год …… but if there are rewards, enter the name and get a free data.originally posted by 1977
It is harder today to get research out of Russia. President Putin has clamped down on researchers. One of my favorite researchers is no longer doing it because of the risk of arrest.
Best Doc
Interesting, I’m not experiencing any problems with obtaining research. It’s just labor research where we can only get limited research nowadays. No problems with Army / Air Force and Navy research though.
Doc:
Questions about podvig-naroda. I can read what they ask but cannot type in Cyrillic. Do they read Latin characters?
Would they likely have tax collectors or partisans? I appear to have one of each in my Lenin Collection.
Auke:
Can you PM with likely contacts to research for an early Lenin to a likely civilian/labor recipient? Talking Tractor era but he survived to get a Platinum head replacement Lenin in 1938-41.
Ed M
I’ll send you a PM.
Regarding Podvig Naroda: you can only enter the information in Cyrillic. There are a few helpful online tools that can help you type Cyrillic characters though, such as http://winrus.com/keyboard.htm.
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