Sergei

Another collector was forced into learning Russian When you look at a page from the document I suggest you print not just that page but also the next one, and also the very first pages from the file which should give details of whoever compiled the doc, the unit etc. Exciting stuff! Sergei

First go to podvignaroda site and enter the name of the recepient in the database.See what happens. Do you speak Russian? Sergei

Just to elaborate on the very last bit in Rick's narrative: he (the Sergeant) took a prisoner and delivered him to his regiment. He was originally recommended for a Red Banner. Sergei

Rick, I bet you are, perhaps in the language that has been been with you since your childhood. I am trying to be helpful as much as I can, I know that I am not being very systematic but the research seems to be coming in faster than I can read it! Where on Earth are the other Russian native speakers!? Sergei

To try and get his education record sorted out, he had 7 years in a 'primary' school which he must have completed by the age of 14. Then he did a so-called Школа фабрично-заводского ученичества, or ФЗУ, that is an establishment that gives a 14-18 year old a profession and simultaneously a secondary education (the emphasis, of course, being on the technical skills). Sergei

Ed, I take it 'выступление' has been has been sorted out - the same word, incidentally, is used by the theatre goes, as in 'выступление в театре' i.e a theatre pefomance. The second missing word is 'проявленные', that is 'revealed' or 'shown'. Sergei PS Sorry for being careless here, the second part of the sentence should then read "... boldness and resolution shown (revealed) in fufullment of ..."

First, without knowing proper terminology: Sep 1943 to Oct 1945 - Inspector of 'political department of Corps?' (the original is 'polit-otdel korpusa') - 107th Rifle Corps, 4th Ukrainian Front Second, I believe these two entries should be read together (quite commonly they used to show start and end dates for a job/post): Oct 1945 - Secretary - 501st Artillery Brigade Jan 1946 - Party ? - 318th Guards Rifle Division, city of Mukachevo Then it becomes Secretary of the Party Commission of 318th Guards Rifle Division, 501st Artillery Brigade, City of Mukachevo Party Commission is different from Party Committee, by the way. Makes sense? Sergei

There's a bit in the cigarette case inscription that's gone missing in translation. I think Ташкент. Ср-Аз ж.д. stands for the Tashkent Middle-Asia railroad (railways). The DTO is probably an abbreviation for Department of Roads and Transportation, the ODTO I have never heard about but my guess would be 'Special Department of Roads and Transportation'. How and why the two departments were working together for 5 years (which this case seems to be celebrating) is beyond me. Sergei

William, I do appreciate what you said, in my (admittedly tiny by comparison) collection I have medals that have been researched to heroic accomplishments and I also have medals that will never become researchable (like a Soviet Combat Service medal wth a s/n under 6000, i.e. from the 1939 era). But the prized item in my collection is the unnumbered Combat Service Medal, a long-cervice award (15 years), technically a piece of scrap silver, except it was given to my father. See what I mean? Sergei

Christian, The Soviet system has never been so mechanical. For example, your assumption that an Army officer would go through the standard 10-15-20 years medal award scheme is not true. Sergei

Just a thought - could we have everything to do with this auction in a separate thread? I think this has been a sufficiently important developement for collectors to merit an independent line of thinking. I have to say, I was appalled by this auction. It seems to me that the people of Mongolia have been sold short (once again!). I just could not believe it when I saw the prices for the items sold from national reserves. No national banker should be allowed to do things like that!!! I do hope that it was a part of a business transaction with "the Northern Businessmen" coming soon to do something good for the benefit of the people of Mongolia. Apologies for too much emotion on the 'Gentlemen's Forum'. Sergei

Hi Alfred, Although not immediately relevant to this award, I am going to email to you a couple of photos from the present-day Kirovograd (it's in the chain Kremenchug-Aleksandriya-Kirovgrad your hero went through and it just happens to be the town I grew up in). Feel free to treat it just as a curiosity. Sergei

Yeah, the writing is quite unpleasant. I could not figure out the name of the village nor the region in the Smolensk district he was born. Nothing of the sort exists in the modern Smolensk area so it'll be an effort. But I agree with the PUN interpretation. The modern version of PUN is 'punkt upravlenija navigatsiej' or 'navigation control center' which is really a device on the airplane (in some cases at least). There is also an organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists with the same abbreviation but that's irrelevant (I hope). Sergei

Ed, I wish I were more coherent, but as I said, the sun (erhmm, the pint?) is beckoning! If there's anything you'd like tidied up, just ask - only a few hours later, please. Sergei

Yeah, this forum! Since there seems to be no active input on previous posts, I will just carry on talking to myself, clearing up in the process some misunderstanding with regard to a particular term in a citation. I admit, I should have done that sooner but the relevant volume was buried deep in a storage cupboard. The citation uses the word яички which is quite hard to find in a small dictionary and which a friend of Ed's had associated with an informal (childish) usage of the language. Here's the story as complete as I am prepared to tell today when the sunshine outside is beckoning. яички is a plural of яичко яйца is a plural of яйцо Most dictionaries do not do plurals. Next, if you buy one chicken egg in a shop or order one in a restaurant in Russia you ask for куриное яйцо (this is how they would appear on the price list) or куриные яйца if several. Asking for куриные яички is okay(ish) but the waiter will start thinking that you are tipsy enough to shift into the less formal language. In children's literature, fairy tales etc. the use of the word яичко as a diminuative for an egg is common and perfectly viable. If a football player get hurt, a TV commentator will say 'a kick in the groin' in English or 'удар в пах' in Russian. A few-beers-later football fan will say 'a kick in the balls' in England or 'удар по яйцам' in Russia. The last too forms, even though they utilise accceptable vocabularly, are out of formal communication. Medics refer to the relevant parts as testicles in English. My 1986 version of the Soviet Encyclopeadic Dictionary has the following entry: яичко - a male sex gland in mammals and humans. It is possible that the medical vocabularly has been latinised in Russia in recent years and this usage has now been abandoned but as far as I can see the citation term яички for testicles was neither unduly coloquial nor impresise. Off to my garden now to have a beer and a яичница. See how we could co-operate if no-one was making hasty presumptions? Have a good Sunday, Sergei

Ed, Thanks for your post. I am here only because I am interested in uncovering historical truth. Cynicism I do not accept. Look back at your post number 11 in this thread and you will know what I mean. As a native speaker, I can help non-Russians cope with some of the less formal usages of the Russian language in citations. If the citation implies a double speak I will say so. If not, I will explain why. I am not interested in promoting a 'conspiracy theory' or otherwise. I do not have time for that. Rick, I am very, very sorry indeed, I am a slow contributor and besides I am not that fluent in English/American military terminology although I understand all of their Russian equivalents. I do read most of the research you post here but it's physically impossible for me to translate everything. I know how you must be feeling and I am also a little (a lot, in fact) surprised that no other native speakers are making an effort given that there are so many Russians registered on this forum. Are they here for purely trading purposes? Weird. As always, it is not my intention to offend anybody. The last time I had a problem understanding an old English joke about Bovril I simply asked the native speakers who knew what it was about without implying anything on the part of the generation that came up with the joke. I think this is how it should be. Sergei

Yeah, Darrell, I am afraid that's how things used to be in a totally, shall we say, non-letigiuos state? In this particular case, I can sort of see the sequence of the events. The guy gets a bad wounld, it's being classified as a heavy one (no kidding when your motherland is under attack!) so he's written off for the Army purposes but then the medics look at him and they go "No way! Your life or or your balls". Despite the efforts of some of our fellow collectors to turn WWII into a glamorous feeding ground for investment purposes, the war is what it's always been. It's when people die. I am a little surprised I have not heard from the owner of this award though. Sergei

Ed, Is your consultant a native speaker? Could you possibly ask your colleague which bit of the text he/she found methaphorical? The Russian text looks utterly transparent to me. Sadly, his balls got chopped off, that's the deal. There's a better question though, have the alternative awards been pre-printed (in which case I am going to say the doc is bogus) or entered with a stamp (looks very neat though). Sergei

Your eye + plus my Ukrainian - I don't envy Order-of-Victory and his recent acqusition! I am sure we'll crack it, it's coming back slowly - things like a typical Ukrainian construction Vazhkoi Promyslovosti for the Heavy Industry. Don't we have a proper Ukrainian (or at least a Ukrainian Canadian) on the forum? Off to bed, London time for me. Sergei

Rick, I think I got it (nearly twisted my eyes) I was referring to the front cover, just above the gilt line. I am pretty sure it says наркомважпром СРСР, the last bit being Soyuz Radianskiy Sotsialistichniy Respubliks, i.e. USSR in Ukarainian. The наркомважпром is most probably Narodnyi Komissariat Tyazholoi Promyshlenosti (Peoples Commissariat of the Heavy Industry) but I would really love to have a Ukrainian to confirm this. If I am right, then the abbreviation in the stamp should read as НКВП or NKVP, as you suggestested. My problem is, I cannot remember the Ukrainian for Тяжелой even though I spent 15 years in that country as a child (i.e. a long time ago) Sergei

Why is there so many ???'s in the service card? The events around September-October 1943 seem to have got things mixed up - he went into a hospital and never returned to active service after that. Sergei

Great documents, congratulations! I am delighted they are in such a good condition, that's really rare. About the first one, are you sure about NKVD? The answer is sitting right in front of me but I can't read it - the top line on the front cover - нарком(WHAT?) СРСР ... The last bit is the the USSR in Ukrainian, нарком is Peoples Comissariat (abbreviated). What does it say in the missing bit? Sergei

Let me in, I can speak Russian too! Impossible to guess what exacly happenned to the commanding officer but if you want to get a feel on how this word/phrase is used I would suggest playing with the simple past tense. If you stick into google выбыл из строя you get stories about sports people with broken limbs who were put out of action temporarily. It is more instructive to try офицер выбыл из строя, this gives some interesting war stories. Typically, the phrase is used either in big-scale statistics, as in 'a half of the army was taken out of action' or, when applied to an individual, in the sense that he could not remain in the ranks (dead, wounded, etc). In one case I saw this phrase applied to a battleship which sank (I think). You could also try the opposite, офицер вернулся в строй, meaning he got back into ranks. Sergei

Bob, Great footage, thanks. The choice of songs was interesting, I do not recall the first one, the second one (the song of young pioneers) is about a happy childhood of the under 14th, the third tune (the three tankmen?) for a minute made me emotional for my father used to serve there (after the conflict) and my mother is from those parts of the world, that's where they hooked up and so on and so forth. The last song is also on my 'part of the childhood' list. I cannot beleive I am so old ! Sergei

Ed, Bob, Order of Victory (I still have to explain what happenned to that ribbon you sent me!), So sorry, I thought I posted a reply Sunday afternoon but I must have hit the wrong button - silly me. To try and make it very compact, (a) clearly, this subforum is not dead, it's just that there is very little to talk about (i.e. no new stock, high prices, the field is too narrow - take your pick) but the die-hards (sorry, Ed) are still around and hopefully this is just a temporary lull. (b) at that party, when my wife went out to see the garden (bless her!) I simply showed to the people the price tags on the more expensive Russian awards site - that stopped the conversation. © I did learn a few things about other areas of collecting - did you realise what a problem shiping is for the guys and girls interested in china? We ship medals overseas just like that but if it's a vase - how on Earth do you pack it? They seem to stick to narrow regions, like collecting stuff made in Stoke (that's in England) - so interesting! (d) Ed is obviously rich (he-he!); Order of Victory has a very nimble strategy that allows him to enhance his collection going with the market flow (and to help the newcomers along the way, I remember that!) Bob - sorry - I am new here and not in a position to comment! But everything you said makes sense - phaleristics is a very special area because of historical connections. It's expensive (especially for late comers like myself). No-one knows were we are going in terms of prices (there was a fantasic write-up about arts collectors in the Sunday times). Monitoring your budget against your wishes is a wise thing. But having said all that, where the hell are the affordable Mongolian awards? Sergei