Romania Romanian Communist Fire Brigade Medal.

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo Gents,

picked this up at the local Hobby Club today sweet and simple for the Fire Brigade in the R. S. R. Period. 1965 -1985.

The front depicts a fire engine and crew speeding to a blaze, in the background a town, under the fire-engine a small red star.

Given for service I believe in the Fire Brigade, (there were two types of Fire-Brigade I believe the Military and a Civil one, both could be called out for all types of fires (until last year the Fire-Brigade was still military connected, and were still to be seen toting machine-guns, however not when called out to fires ).

Perhaps Carol I could give a little more information with regards this medal?

Kevin in Deva.

[Kev in Deva]

The rear.

Kevin in Deva

[Carol I]

Perhaps Carol I could give a little more information with regards this medal?

Sorry to disappoint you, Kevin, but I do not know much about the decorations of the Communist period.

until last year the Fire-Brigade was still military connected, and were still to be seen toting machine-guns, however not when called out to fires

The military connection of the firemen in Romania is a tradition related to a historical event. On 13 September 1848, the firemen division of Bucharest led by Pavel Zăgănescu opposed suicidal resistance to the Ottoman troops sent to suppress the Wallachian revolution and arrest its leaders (see Wikipedia for example).

[Kev in Deva]

Sorry to disappoint you, Kevin, but I do not know much about the decorations of the Communist period.

The military connection of the firemen in Romania is a tradition related to a historical event. On 13 September 1848, the firemen division of Bucharest led by Pavel Zăgănescu opposed suicidal resistance to the Ottoman troops sent to suppress the Wallachian revolution and arrest its leaders (see Wikipedia for example).

Hi Carol,

thanks for the reply, any information is helpful, while there are a couple of books on Romanian awards here, none go into detail of why they are awarded in detail, a lot contain mis-information copied from previous books, and some times when I ask about items from sellers you get the idea they dont want to tell "in case they are giving away a secret to a foreigner" seems you can take away communisun from the man, but, can you seperate man from Communist thinking??

Kevin in Deva.

PS with regards the Military & Fire-Brigade, I did notice in my research on the British Forces in Ireland back in the 1800's, the Military Barracks were one of the first institutions to have fire-engines*, as this was a very expensive item, requiring a trained team of men to operate, whenever there was a fire in the town, the military would bring and operate the machine, other soldiers would be posted to secure the area from looters and along with the police keep the crowd back at a safe distance, I would imagine a similar practise was carried out in Europe.

Looking at the attached image, it appears that the "firemen" had received some sort of military training to handle fire-arms so they might already have been part of the military structure of the time

* in this context the "engine" was a man-powered pump feed by a bucket chain from the nearest water-source.

K.

Edited March 10, 2007 by Kev in Deva

[Carol I]

Looking at the attached image, it appears that the "firemen" had received some sort of military training to handle fire-arms so they might already have been part of the military structure of the time

Maybe the firemen were selected/volunteered from the ranks of the military, hence they did their firearms training before the firemen training.