Bob

Some better scans. This is a heavy little gold award! Still looks Soviet to me!

Yep - with such a huge landmass and small population, they managed to do pretty well for themselves in not being crushed.

That's all - I hope somebody knowledgable can decypher anything useful from these doc's while I await research. I also just submitted a seperate research request. My Russian boss came with a bag of orders/medals to work today. After long nagging by me she got her mother to look them up in St Petersburg. Her grandmother fought in the Finish war and later defended Leningrad. Subsequently he did chemical research related to rockets in a "secret" facility. Unfortunately most of the awards had vanished over the years however 1 red star still survived (along with some assorted other stuff) and that will provide best chance of finding something in the archives as I also have the name. Nothing beats the excitement of awaiting research on a person that you have a direct relation to! Plus, his surname was... Zhukov!

inside

Here we go...

OK, point taken - hope I didn't step on any people's toes Reminds me of similar debate I have with my Russian boss sometimes... in the company I work for, she insists that Mongolia should be part of our sales region of former soviet countries... I keep pointing out that Mongolia was never member of Soviet Union... at which point she always points out that Mongolia may not have formally been part of USSR but informally did as Moscow saw fit... and then typically I get an ice cold look that Russian women seem to be pretty good at

I guess they'd count. On the other hand... they were essentially Soviet medals/orders, right? I.e. USSR was "occupying" the country so it's not like Afhanistan (like Mongolia or DPRK) sourced them from Soviet mint purely for procurement related reasons.

Poland caught me by surprise - my limited exposure to them never gave me the impression that much soviet symbolism was used in Polish awards. Love those Yugoslav stars by the way! I only have a 3rd class one of soviet manufacture (but WITH award document apparently awarded to a Russian).

Couldn't you just sell the house instead?

Herr Zulus - looking at your awards from your "my collection" thread. I'm stunned you haven't gone out to get research for all of these yet! The stories behind them must be very interesting!

Thanks for the insight Steve. I guess it's about time I give Alexei a try then. I've always been extremely satisfied with the level of service when he was selling awards on a more frequent basis so good idea to also go with Alexei on research now.

Well, I've learnt to be patient with research requests. I have an order of red star out for about 2 years and still waiting... which is probably not a good sign Too bad as it's in the range of red stars awarded to Mongolians. The one red I have managed to get researched took well over a year.

Hopefully I can provide clarity tomorrow. One of the stamps of his other medals specifically mentions Vilnius and I believe may also indicate something related to the unit he was in. Mail is off to Alexei - keeping fingers crossed!

Ah yes, forgot about Yugoslavia. Have a partizan red star (with doc) myself - one of the Soviet made ones. Any other countries?

+2 Unfortunately (or: fortunately?) Albanian awards hasn't been much of a hit yet with the rest of the collecting community but the few enthusiasts are sure to want to help!

It's clear that there's a substantial amount of Mongolian awards manufactured in Soviet mint(s) and this partially explains their popularity. Same is true for the earlier North Korean awards. Albania had limited amount of awards manufactured in USSR (in particular the partisan red stars - in gold / silver). What other countries had (some) awards manufactured by the Soviets?

Thanks Rick - the whole package it will be then. I'll post a pic of Ivan tomorrow. Right now, looking at the photograph I don't have the impression a rank can be determined. He appears to not be wearing anything remotely similar to a "fancy" uniform although he does appear to have a bar with ribbons on his left chest. Just a brave young Ivan with a nice group of battered awards.

Just acquired a nice group to Ivan Ivanovich Gannenko. Will be posting pics once back behind my scanner and then send details off for research. Here's what Ivan has: - Medal of Bravery - 395994 - Order of Red Star - 774925 (missing from the group) - Order of Glory 3 - 640120 - Order of Glory 2 - 30789 Above 4 are indicated in award booklet (with a rather unassuming photograph of Ivan). Added are some additional award docs etc. for typical jubilee medals. I guess (using gmic, no echoes of war in hand) that he was relatively late into the war and may have fought in Berlin. So... am looking at Alexei's site: Award Record Card - $25.00 Service Record Card - $25.00 Citation for Each Award - $35.00 I'm not so familiar with research - what should i be getting here? If/when I get research, thread can hopefully move to the researched thread.

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