Colonel Zandraa Zulaa

[Bob]

Here's a small group of two Soviet Medals awarded to Colonel Zandraa Zulaa:

1) Soviet Medal of Strengthening Combat Brotherhood with the award document. The document is signed by Minister of Defense of USSR Marshal Ustinov!  The medal was awarded on Sept. 4, 1981.  

2) 70 years of Soviet Armed Forces medal with the document. The medal was awarded on April 20, 1981.

There were very few colonels in early 1980s and, considering Zulaa was awarded the Soviet Medal of Strengthening Combat Brotherhood, he must have been a high-ranking officer within the Ministry of Defense.

Unfortunately the family split up the group. Maybe I'll be lucky and be able to find more parts of the group to keep it together.

[Paul R]

What an interesting group.  I hope that you can find more of his items. 

[Bob]

Sharing some info that an enthusiastic reader of the board (with Russian language skills!) shared with me:

The stamp on the anniversary medal doc is from military unit 68202, which appears to be some portion of the Soviet garrison in Ulaanbaatar. There are two hits for it on google.

One is a Russian forum thread (http://mongol.su/forum/index.php?topic=630.100) where someone who worked there (as a civilian, apparently) wrote something ambiguous (includes some neat pics!). In the same sentence, he mentions housing services (КЭЧ), a staff, a signals regiment, infantry, and electricity generation. The other result is an Odnoklassniki page (https://ok.ru/group/51808659177570) for the unit. The page is labeled КЭЧ, and the photos look pretty domestic.

Researcher indicates he doesn't know what to conclude, since one unit number could encompass a lot, but that it is odd for a document to a foreigner (an active duty Colonel no less) to be signed by someone of comparatively low rank (Lt. Colonel Zykov, commander of unit 68202) from a backwater unit.

[Bob]

And a later version...