Dudeman

VDNKh in Moscow?

I believe Erik is correct. These look like die breaks.

I'm guessing a French aviator in the Normandy-Neman Aviation Unit.

On second glance, I believe the otchestvo is "Emel'yanovich". Not a very common name indeed.

Thingy is "ya".

CIB could be from either AFEM (Grenada or Panama) or Vietnam

This Stalingrad medal recipient added to the reverse a span of German medal ribbon. Wonder what the story was behind this one...

That's a good question. I don't know the authors of the exact article because strangely enough one is not indicated. I know two of the authors who make up the "kollektiv" who write for Nagradoved. If your info has him receiving the medal 4 times instead of six, it is not surprising. I have two sets with award books that show a recipient with X Bravery Medals when the research indicates 1 or even 2 additional ones granted years later for wounds or whatever reason. Also, I don't think anyone can put the "exact" number of almost any Soviet number awarded more than a 100K times. For example, I just read an article a week ago where the Russian embassy in Uzbekistan awarded forgotten Uzbeks (some posthumous) medals for their actions during AFGHANISTAN. Granted they may have given Russian Federation awards, but they were probably handed old Soviet stocks. If they were given Soviet medals, I'm sure a Bravery Medal would have been among them. Similar awardings occurred in Russia into the early 2000s. As in the example of the recipient of six (recorded as four) Bravery Medals above, the Soviets were good at record keeping, but not perfect. Thus, the exact magic number for an award given more than 4,000,000 times can't be precise.

No. The information is from a publication Nagradoved (p. 43) published jointly in Kiev and Moscow in 2004. The authors whom I know are reliable and spend a lot of time digging around in the archives.

Due to overwhelming curiosity and demand for the information I've decided to break my silence - yawn. There were two recipients who received SIX bravery medals for their feats in the Great Patriotic War - Starshina Marchenko, M.T. and razvedchik Breev, V. Now go back to whatever you were doing...

The number of awardings is not high enough.

Many Russian pensioners I know only have one suit.

Who is to say? I think it was just an individual's taste. Real diehards, would wear this screwback orders even on a civilian suit ALL the time and thus wouldn't care about the holes they made. Others, especially with the dawn of the early 90s would merely wear their ribbon bars to avoid getting mugged for their valuable awards.

This style of attachment is infrequently encountered. I have a set with two Red Stars and an OPW II all done similarly. Screwposts are also often filed down to keep from poking the wearer.

Ribbon doesn't go with the Bravery Medal (I think 50th anniversary of Victory if I remember correctly). I bought it this way and haven't switched it out for the appropriate Bravery Medal ribbon.

I thought I would open this topic up to awards that have been modified outside of the mint. This can include altered suspensions, engraving, scratches to test whether the item is really gold, etc. This piece has a been punched with some kind of metal stamp. The "puncher" also punched the medal on the edge at about 10 o'clock relative to the medal's revese and is slightly visible. Was this the work of a bored child or does it mean anything? The punch would be either "ZO" or "30" in Cyrillic. The piece illustrated also has "dings" that I mentioned on another thread as a good indicator of genuine wear and a piece's authenticity. It usually shows up on Bravery Medals and Combat Service Medals, but also on on other predominately silver awards. These dings come from beating up against the "harder" campaign medals.

These are the "dings" to which I referred above.

I like the "underwent special interviews" part. This would have been his NKVD "debriefing".

Who was the recipient of the greatest number of recorded Soviet Bravery Medals and how many awardings were there?

Checkpoint Charlie? JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" and Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" presidential speeches?

Wow, it's messed up that he has such a high Ebay approval rating with such blatant junk. Caveat emptor.

I'm guessing something to do with the Berlin Wall, but I've usually seen the construction date of sometime in AUG 61.

Be careful in how you define "scratches". There are "scratches" or what I would call "dings" that definitely show a medal has been worn many years in the company of other medals, usually on a ribbon bar. I have seen this most frequently on silver Bravery and Combat Service Medals. These dings take the shape of a 1-2mm "crescent moon" or slightly curved, perpendicular straight lines. If looking at the award's reverse, they are usually on the left side and the perpendicular lines (relative to the ground) are horizontal to each other. This is a result of the awardee's medal being the highest in his award grouping and the softer silver medal beat up against harder bronze campaign medals or jubilee medals. The dings are of varying depth, but usually most deep and prevalent on the reverse's center left where the most contact would have been with accompanying medals. These are a sure sign of a genuine medal, and genuine, long wear over the years. Their absence of course means either the medal wasn't worn frequently, was worn independently of others and didn't come into contact with them, or any other host of reasons.

Mere assignment to a Guards unit entitled one to the title "Guards" and the right to wear the badge. I have never seen more detailed regulations concerning time assigned, revocation of a Guards badge, etc. but the Soviets may not have ever written them or exercised them arbitrarily.

Nakhimov naval schools and ONE of many Suvorov schools for the army, with the specific name overlaid on top of the stamped "BU" struck below. I've never seen a PLAIN Suvorov, or a Nakhimov with a city name... ? Plain (generic) Suvorov Academy badges do exist, though are not common. I too have never seen a Nakhimov with a city name. I think there were never more than 2-3 Nakhimov academies, enough to warrant variations.