Mondvor

Award citation for Red Star Name: Rodionov Ivan Stepanovich Military Rank: Major Position: Chief of Personnel Section, Poltitcal Department of 23rd Army, Born: 1910 Nationality: Russian Party membership: Communist Party member since 1929 Participation in war: In Great Patriotic War from 1941 near Sortavala, Landenpohya, Valkyarvee, Beloostrov. Wounds or contusions: None In Red Army: since June 1941 From what Military Registration Office was recruited: City of Viborg Military Registration Office Previous awards: Not awarded Home address: Bashkir SSR, City of Beloretsk, Pushkin street 128 Short description of merits: Comrade Rodionov is in Red Army since the first days of war. He was a commissar of mortar battery and participated in intense battles near Sortavala, Landenpohya, Valkyarvee and other places of Karelian Isthmus. At the beginning of 1942 he was assigned to Political Department of 23rd Army. He displayed himself as a hard-working, serious and conscientious specialist. He often was sent to front line units to educate junior political officers. When the Supreme Political Department of Red Army introduced new Instructions # 24 and # 05, comrade Rodionov successfully carried out tremendous amount of work for transferring junior political officers to command positions. He regularly visit Army formations and meet their political officers to share his experience and provide necessary help. Deserves a state award ? Order of the Red Star. Head of Poltitcal Department of 23rd Army ? Colonel Zvonov.

Orderbook - second page.

Orderbook - first page.

Question: Why orderbooks were so important to Soviet people? Answer: Because they were issued together with coupon book for monthly payments. So "orderbook" = "money". But since Jan. 1948 all money payments for orders and medals were cancelled. So the importance of the orderbook was diminished. That's why some people who didn't change temporary certificates for orderbook before 1948 decided no to change it at all. That is especially true for people from rural places (collective farmers). To exchange temporary documents for orderbook they should make a long and somewhat expensive trip to the Regional Military Registration Office.

In case of Vaitsman's orderbook displayed by Alfred, "black dealers" also screwed up. In according with the data at the bottom, the book was filled in 1946. How unnumbered Otvaga could be in a list? Before making fake orderbooks they should pay more attention to the history of awards... Morons...

In case with Chertkov they also did a mistake in the list of awards in the orderbook. We can see that besides his three Glories he had Otvaga medal clearly visible on the photo. But there is no Otvaga in the list of his awards on the other page. Instead they put Military Merit and Red Star, which are absent on the photo...

four

three

two

But the event of Supreme Soviet seal on 1945-47 orderbook was wery unusual. Only some HSU and high-ranking generals got their orderbooks in Kremlin. 99% of other officers received permanent orderbooks in exchange for their temporary certificates in their units. And most of them didn't have any pictures at all (only a stamp "valid without a picture"). For those who did have a picture, it was normally covered with a seal of the unit (Army, Military District, etc). But NOT a Supreme Soviet seal. Here are some examples of real seals on 1945-47 orderbooks.

And this is how REAL seal of Supreme Soviet in 1941-46 looked like.

2nd

Another "Zotov". Maybe those guys love this last name

2nd

1st

Second

First

Second page

First page

Second page.

As I promised - here is some fake stuff.

Well, it could be even 3XXXX range number. Sometimes 3 in sloppy handwriting looks almost like 8. And the date is perfectly matching. Many 31 - 33.000 were awarded in september-october 1942.

Rick, this is not a confirmation. It's more like refutation... Right after order's number you can see the symbol of two "waves" - ~. I don't know if you use same symbol in English, but in Russian it means "approximately". And after this "wave" symbol there is Russian word "НЕРАЗБОРЧИВО". That means illegible or indecipherable.

Dave, Of course if you are interested I can post all fake orderbooks on the forum. I can do that later in the evening because I'm on my job right now and I don't have access to my files. BTW many of them filled with identical handwriting. I bet they were made by the same person...

Right, exactly.