Great Patriotic War Collection

This is my personal collection of soviet items. I've never really showed them to anyone but this looks like the perfect place. Not too many people appreciate trophies of such historic value nowadays. Please forgive the low quality of the pictures as I had to take them with my cell phone camera.

Silver Medal "For Courage" (left), it being the highest military medal in the Red Army. Silver Medal "For Military Merit" (right) is the second highest military medal.


"For the Capture of Berlin", "For the Capture of Vienna", "For the Capture of Konigsberg".


"For the Liberation of Belgrade"
Brass Medal with Stalin Portrait reads "Our Cause is Just. We have Won" for Victory Over Nazi Germany
"60 Year Celebration of Red Army"


"For the Defense of Stalingrad", "For the Defense of Moscow", "For the Defense of the Caucasus".


"50th Anniversary WWII", "Chernobyl Medal for Post-Disaster Cleanup", "Labor Veteran"


"Order of the Patriotic War" 1st & 2nd Class


These are my most prized awards. "Order of the Red Banner" (left) is the highest military award in the Soviet Red Army second only to the Order of Lenin. Kim Philby was awarded one for his outstanding deeds. Recipients were given the title "Cavalier of the Red Banner". "Order of the Red Star" (right). They both read "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!"


My soviet coin collection. The last bottom right coin is a 1924 Half-Ruble Silver Coin and is by far the most precious soviet item I have altogether.


Stalin


Lenin


Well that's it for now comrades. I'm still working on getting the very rare "Order of Lenin". Hopefully one day I'll have enough money to buy one as well as the other super expensive honorary titles of "Hero of the Soviet Union" and "Hero of Socialist Labor" which I've been told sell here at around $10,000 and beyond.

WOW! This is SO, SO cool! I'm doing homework with some friends, and I called them all over to take a look. Everyone is thoroughly impressed. Where did you get all those medals?

That's a very impressive collection there comrade.

(I shudder to imagine how much time and money it would have taken to build.)

Any ideas what the illustration on the Chernobyl clean-up medal is meant to depict?

It all started when I accidentally found the 1924 half-ruble silver coin in my mother's bedside drawer. Incidentally that was in 1998 when I first came into contact with Marxism through my schoolmates. I asked if I could keep it and she agreed. She didn't remember where she got it from nor did she have any interest in it. In the days that followed I would show it at school to schoolmates and teachers. I even let some students borrow it for a while. It's only now that I know of its true value and am very thankful that nobody lost it then. Now I know that it was my grandmother who obtained it some time after the war somewhere in the Ukraine. Her family had to move around a lot due to hardships caused during Nazi occupation. The whole coin collection is hers which she has been gathering up since the Khrushchev era. She gave them all to me when I graduated from medical school. As for the Medals and Orders I have been collecting through my grandmother's contacts at the local Kiev market. She sells locally made clothes there and knows people. I would make a list of what I want. She would tell me the price and what I could afford she would get me. I've been collecting since 2005 and the whole collection cost me less than $1000. The Chernobyl medal I bought just last week from some guy selling old things at a subway station for $25. One really nice thing he did have was a 100 ruble banknote from the twenties with Lenin's portrait on it but it was too expensive at $100 for me at the time.

The illustration on the Chernobyl medal show the Greek alphabets of alpha, beta, and gamma representing the types of radioactive particles released during radioactive decay. The drop of blood represents the lives lost during the cleanup. The words literally read "Participant in the Post-Disaster Cleanup". The letter at the bottom literally stand for "Chernobyl Atomic Electric Station" but better translates as "Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant".

Very cool,thanks for sharing this with us.

Thanks for sharing the back story on your collection also.

Yeqon wrote:

One really nice thing he did have was a 100 ruble banknote from the twenties with Lenin's portrait on it but it was too expensive at $100 for me at the time.

I wonder what the buying power of the note would have been when it was new - from what I've heard the inflation was pretty bad.

Very nice collection there. Thanks for sharing.

I do not collect decorations though, only headgear. The one decoration I really like though, besides the one for Chernobyl liquidators which you have there, is the Order of Friendship of Nations.







Just look at the small details like the handshakes forming the circle. Normally worth around over US$600, I believe.

Yes that is one of the most beautiful decorations the soviets had. Thanks for pointing out the handshakes on the circle. I've had pictures of this order for years but never noticed the handshakes. Unbelievable! What else did I miss? One day I'm hoping to have the whole collection with their certificates. It'll cost a fortune but I'm betting that it'll be a good investment. This is my all time favorite award, the "Order of Victory". There are less than 20 of them in the world. Made of gold, platinum, enamel, 174 diamonds, 5 rubies. A priceless piece of soviet heritage.

Wow, that's just amazing. "Unbelievable", like you said. It always surprises me, the Soviet handiwork. From the little details like the silk lining in caps to the jewels in awards.

I've added a few things to the collection:

Jubilee Medals:

"Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
"Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
"70 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR 1918-1988"



"For Valiant Labour in Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary since the Birth of V.I. Lenin"
"For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"




A clearer picture of the coins. Some of the personalities in the portraits include:
Friedrich Engels, A.S. Popov, A.S. Pushkin, M.Y. Lermontov, M.V. Lomonosov, Francysk Skaryna, L.N. Tolstoy, Jānis Pliekšāns "Rainis", Anton Chekhov, Marshal Zhukov, Mihai Eminescu, Ivan Fyodorov, P. Tchaikovsky, K.E. Tsiolkovsky, M. Mussorgsky, A.M. Gorky.

The other historic figure's names are written in languages I am not familiar with.