JimZ

Here's an HSU that recently sold on an online auciton for circa USD3.7K. Discussed briefly on another thread but the question was raised that this might be a good fake. If there is general consensus that this is orignal I will move the thread to the Soviet section.... if not it will stay here. Your comments gents......

I take it that he missed an important honour but was later actually awarded "the prestigious award".....Our international dimension adds spice to the questions sometimes. However, we'll wait for Christophe to clarify. Jim :cheers:

I am not familiar with this. I have tried to run a search on Italian forums but I realised that I do not know the proper word for "hallmark" in Italian. Pehaps Lilo can lend a hand here and teach us a new word as well as perhaps provide us with further information.... Jim :cheers:

Update scoreboard follows with Cristophe and Gunner 1 starting to establish themselves too. 17 points - JimZ 14 points - Harvey 10 points - Hauptmann 5 points - Gunner 1 4 points - Christophe 3 points - Valter 2 points - kapten_windu Question 55 next!!! Christophe.... Your turn to challenge us!! Jim

As "tall" as Mr Medvedev I cropped out the medals to make it a touch less easy!!! Well done Christophe - Your point!

Question 54 Who am I and what event made me famous? Jim :cheers:

Yes - you are indeed right on both counts on the Suvorov.... A shortened screwpost may be an original alteration made by the awardee. But agreed that it is unresearchable - Nonetheless, for an order to sell at USD3K below dealers prices (if the rest is original), I wouls still say that it sold way under its current value. Of course I would not advocate the purchase of awards with defaced serial numbers as these may just as easily be defaced by the awardee back in the 90s as well as being stolen from museums or the recipients themselves - we all know the horror stories! Re the HSU, I will defer to your better judgement if you have reasons to doubt its originality. I personally find the HSU to be highly a fascinating award that is highly demanded by collectors on account of its status - but it is otherwise a highly insipid award. Perhaps I should open up some threads on these three awards in the fake section to go into debating their veracity or otherwise. If you are right, its a big ouch for the person who bought it! My views on the economics of soviet ODMs however remain unchanged.

So to update the scoreboard - 17 points - JimZ 14 points - Harvey 10 points - Hauptmann 5 points - Gunner 1 3 points - Valter 3 points - Christophe 2 points - kapten_windu I will set question 54 tomorrow all going well! Jim

Thanks Gunner. You are in fact correct re answer two. I misread that! I almost came up with another name of yet another purge victim with a similar profile - I'll not mention his name as he could be the subject of a future question.... But I could not find any info about his wife!!! Which is what led me to our man. Yet another star officer executed as a result of Stalin's paranoia!!

And if he's our man, here are his photos... same source as above.

Might we be talking about: 1) Pavel Rychagov 2) Maria Nesteryenko 3) General Lieutenant Birth: Jan. 2, 1911 Moscow, Russian Federation Death: Oct. 28, 1941 Moscow, Russian Federation Pavel Rychagov was born in Nizhnie Likhobory on 2 January 1911 (this village now forms part of the city of Moscow). He was a victim of Stalin Red Army purges in the late 30's along with other 2000 Soviet VV ( Air Forces )officers and pilots. He was excuted without a trial in 1941 by the NKVD mad dogs. He joined the army in 1928, graduating two years later from the Leningrad Military College of the Air Forces. He then undertook a further course in 1931 at the 2nd Military College for Pilots, which was later renamed V. P. Chkalov Military Air School for Pilots at Borisoglebsk. He then served in the 5th Aerobrigada, leading a zveno, and later a detachment. In October 1936 he went to Spain as a member of the first group of volunteers to fly in the Spanish Civil War, using the nom de guerre Pablo Palancar. His unit was under the command of P. I. Pumpur.In November of 1936 this unit consisted of about 50 I-15s and I-16s fighters. From October of 1936 till February of 1937 Starshii Leytenant Rychagov was a commander of a I-15 Fighter Regiment of three I-15 Squadrons in the Madrid sector. Concurrently he flew combat missions as a commander of an I-15 Squadron. On 4 November these I-15s were put in their first air-battles. There were four missions during the day. Commanded by Pumpur and Rychagov, I-15 fighters in squadron strength engaged the enemy planes over Carrabanchel during the day's first mission. The Soviet pilots claimed four victories in the clash that lasted barely 10 minutes. The aim of the second mission was to intercept six Ju52 escorted by fighters. Commanded by Rychagov the squadron shot down one Ju52. During the third mission a squadron led by Georgiy Zakharov (in his first mission) fought against two flights of bombers, which were escorted by ten fighters. I-15s claimed one enemy fighter. There were no losses of I-15s. The last, forth mission at the end of the day was an alert scramble. A squadron led by Rychagov claimed one more enemy fighter. In all, the I-15s claims five enemy fighters and two Ju52 bombers in this day - 7 victories without losses. One of the fighters, a He51, was claimed by Rychagov. Two I-15s however became lost and the pilots made forced landing in Segovia. The Nationalist bulletin claimed two aircraft destroyed, while the Government bulletin, which referred only to the earlier engagement, claimed the destruction of two Heinkels, these two most probably claimed by Leytenant Rychagov, who claimed two enemy aircraft during the day. Bonomi confirmed that the Fiats had shot down two fighters, and this was also confirmed by the Air Force communiqué, which admitted the loss of a Fiat and a Junkers. Rychagov claimed a Junker Ju52/3m on 15 November. On 16 November there was an air battle between a Fiat squadron (including Joaquín García-Morato) and four I-16s escorting nine I-15s over Madrid. Two squadron leader, Rychagov, were shot down. Although Rychagov was forced to abandon the aircraft on altitude of only 150 metres, he managed to parachute and survive. He landed in the Paseo de la Castellana, near the War Ministry.The Nationalists claimed two fighters while one Italian pilot was wounded but managed to reach his base. The Republicans claimed five victories, two of them by Rychagov, and one loss (Rychagov). On 31 December 1936 he was decorated with the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin. At this time he was credited with six victories (totally he claimed six and 14 shared victories in Spain).At the end of the winter of 1936-1937, Rychagov's I-15 group had claimed about 40 victories. Returning to the Soviet Union in 1937, he was promoted Major, but he remained in this rank only briefly. He had shown considerable competence, and due to shortage of experienced commanders he was promoted to Kombrig (Brigadier General) before the year was out, and while still only 26. In December 1937 he led the first group of volunteers to China, where he commanded a fighter group until April 1938, adding the Order of the Red Banner to his earlier decorations. In the summer of 1938 he commanded the group of VVS units during the short border clash with Japanese units over Lake Khasan, on the Mandzukuo and Korea border. The VVS units consisted of around 180 bombers and 70 fighters. They didn't met any Japanese opposition in the air since the use of aircraft was not permitted by the Japanese command since they didn't want to broaden the conflict. In December 1939 came further promotion to General Major, and he was appointed commander of the Air Force of the 9th Army for operations against Finland during the Winter War. In May 1940 he received a third Order of the Red Banner and was promoted to General Leytenant on 6 June. He became commander of the VVS RKKA on 28 August 1940 after Yakov Shmushkevich and remained in this post until 14 April 1941. The late 30's and early 40's were times of great purges in the Soviet Union. There were two waves of purges in the VVS RKKA. The first was in 1937-1939 and ended when Beria took command of the NKVD after Jezov. 5616 officers from the VVS were purged during this period and of these only 892 returned to service. The second purge against the VVS RKKA started in April 1941. At least 18 high air force commanders were arrested under false accusations of a conspiracy against Stalin made up by the NKVD. The conspiracy was supposedly led by General Kiril Meretskov (a veteran from Spain), who had been chief of the General Staff (August 1940 – 14 January 1941). Rychagov was arrested on 24 June 1941. Other arrested included the Commander of the PVO General Pulkovnik F. M. Stern (a veteran who had served in Spain, Lake Khasan, Khalkin Gol and Finland - as commander of the Air Force of the 8th Army), the deputy commander of the General Staff Yakov Shmushkevich (arrested on 14 June 1941), the deputy commander of the VVS RKKA Academy Kombrig F. K. Arzenuchin, the chief of Staff VVS P.O P. S. Volodin, the Commander of the VVS Moscow Military District P. I. Pumpura (who had been fighter commander in Spain 1936-1939) and several others. All of them were badly tortured during the NKVD questioning. When German troops closed in on Moscow during the autumn of 1941, government and political institutions were evacuated. 300 high ranking Soviet officers in prison in Lubjanka were executed by the NKVD due to lack of transportation but the group of 18 high VVS commander were evacuated earlier to Kuybyshev (now Samara). However to order for execution followed them and Rychagov (together with his wife; Mayor Maria Nesteryenko - commander of independent aviation unit) was executed on 28 October 1941. At the time of his death Rychagov was credited with 6 biplane victories. During the war he had also been decorated with a second Order of Lenin. After Stalin's death in 1953, Rychagov was rehabilitated in 1954. http://www.findagrav...r&GRid=58545545

Well done Gunner ! The score now stand as follows !! 16 points - JimZ 14 points - Harvey 10 points - Hauptmann 5 points - Gunner 1 3 points - Valter 3 points - Christophe 2 points - kapten_windu Question 53 is all yours! Jim

I am synonymous with the the Russian Revolution, although it transpires that part of me was British! Jim :cheers:

I do not want to deviate too much from the OoG nature of this thread....BUT... I recently observed an online auction site selling, a Suvorov 3 sell for USD3.6K, a Bogdan 3 sell for USD3.5K and an HSU sell for USD3.7K. To the best that I was able to observe from the pics, and without physically examining them, I found liitle reason to doubt that these may have been originals. Whereas the BK price was reasonable and reflected recent dealer prices, the Suvorov 3 sold for USD3K below recently advertised dealer prices and the HSU, I would reckon may also have sold below recent dealer prices (although I have not been following HSU prices much). My opinion on the economics is that the price surge witnessed a few years back was fuelled by Russian law and the first global economic crisis, whereby speculators and collectors saw Soviet ODMs as a "bulletproof" investment (to quote the expression used by an old friend of mine) further accelerating the demand and price of these ODMs. however, the all time high was reached in 2008/9 and market prices have started to become more moderate again. For those who went into Soviet ODMs for speculative reasons, .....you probably missed the boat to dump your investment in 2008/9!! For others, like myself who are collectors, and who have been priced out of the market, we can again start to breathe a small sigh of relief and hope that this reversing trend continues. Of course, keep your eyes on the price of precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum, all of which raise the "melt" price of these orders and which in turn, create another kind of demand! As for the dealers, well they do provide a service - ready availability of original orders - but truth be said, the premium paid for this service is unrealistic. My advice here would be to revise your stock prices in line with present market realities and keep making reasonable commissions on higher volume sales as opposed to one off "rip-off" profits - you do not seem to have the pulse of the market on some of your stock items....simple! For the seasoned collector who knows that waiting is part of the game, huge savings may be enjoyed with lots of study, effort and patience. At least, that's my take on present market realities. I could however, also be wrong! Jim :cheers:

Hi Wildcard, Thanks for posting and WOW. The points you raise re Jeff's badge and the seperate plate are possible, but like slava, I am not familiar enough with this badge to comment on variations. What I would dare say is that Jeff's bage does seem to consist of two parts which, when looking closely at the photo show that they these are misaligned - they probably became loose over the years and moved apart. It will be interesting to find more about this badge. - I will use my "volshevnik" powers to update the title thread to reflect the badge itself - perhaps we'll get some more interest on this. Keep it coming gents! Jim

I was a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the October Revolution, which did me great honour. JIm :cheers:

Hi tjinier, Not a problem. You actually got us discussing these crosses We're all here to help when we can. Regards, Jim :cheers:

Question 52 I spoke but one word, and Russia would never be the same again. Yet I am loved by millions who have visited me since. 1 - Who am I? 2 - Where was I when I spoke? 3 - What was I doing there? 4 - Attach a picture of me for all to see. Jim :cheers:

The score now stand as follows !! 16 points - JimZ 14 points - Harvey 10 points - Hauptmann 4 points - Gunner 1 3 points - Valter 3 points - Christophe 2 points - kapten_windu Question 52 will follow shortly. Jim

Indeed - a generation of spies that don't exist any longer. :cheers:

And the quote: "In my whole life, I have never met anyone as great as he was." - was proclaimed by Mitsusada Yoshikawa, the Chief Prosecutor in the Sorge trials who obtained Sorge's death sentence Jim :cheers:

I was Richard Sorge and I was a Russian Spy! He seemed particularly good at being able to supply info concerning invasion dates - Pearl Harbour - Operation Barbarossa. A veritable Master Spy!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sorge

Good going Gunner 1. You got the reply to question 50!!! The score now stand as follows !! 15 points - JimZ 14 points - Harvey 10 points - Hauptmann 4 points - Gunner 1 3 points - Valter 3 points - Christophe 2 points - kapten_windu Question 51 is up next and its up to Gunner 1 to fire away. Jim

Oh...and as the Slava was the first of the Slava class, it appears that the Belknap is also the first of the Belknap class too..... I was not aware of that....would have been nice to work that into the hints...... But without much further ado....Harvey.... its your turn Jim :cheers: