Soviet The manufacturing of Soviet Orders and Medals

[Christian Zulus]

Gentlemen,

does anybody have informations, documents, photographs about the production process of orders and medals in the former Soviet Union (or todays Russia)?

Years ago that question arose in the "other" forum for Soviet awards, but no one had any material, except some nice photographs of the building of the Moscow Mint .

In my home country Austria for centuries the orders are made that way:

- design competition (the present awards had been designed by one renowed architect)

- the metal parts are struck by the "M?nze ?sterreich" (Austrian Mint)

- these parts go to certain juwellers in Vienna, who manufacture awards since the days of the k.u.k. Empire and they finish the orders

- the juwellers put the orders in nice boxes - their name is signed at the order and inside the box - and send them back to the office of the Austrian President.

I assume, that in Soviet times the complete process of manufacturing had been done by the Montnydwor, (Mint), except the design.

Years ago I have read somewhere, that the famous Faberg? juwellers of Russia had been incorporated by the Bolsheviks to the mint after the revolution and manufactured their the orders and medals. This might be a reason for the outstanding quality of Soviet awards ?

Are the - rather ugly and cheap looking - Russian awards of our time produced in the same way, as Soviet awards?

Who has any informations about what happened at the mints between the approval of the design by comrade Stalin and delivering the awards to the troops?

There is a lot of work done by hands and early awards - i.e. "Red Banner of Labour" T2 / V1 - have signatures by the artist/worker, who manufactured the piece (at least my example has a cyrillic letter as a signature) - and I think it was a rather artistic work. Metal parts of the award had been always struck by the Mint and never casted - as a lot of fakes are done.

Who has any informations about the making of Soviet orders and medals?

Best regards

Christian Zulus