Russian soldier

[StuGIII]

Vasili

It almost looks to me as though Vasili has some sort of badge or something else underneath his medals. Any thoughts on why while he has the dark shoulder boards of either the artillery or tank corps, he doesn't have the proper insignia on his boards?

[Komandir RKKA]

I think last medals are "For Combat Merit" and "For the Capture of Berlin"
John, it was a wartime, who cares about proper speciality signs :-)
It was natural for Red Army 1941-1945, especialy combat frontline units.

[STEBALIN]

What I find interesting is that the buttons of his gymnasterka are not the typical hammer and sickle ones, but civilian type. Maybe the gymasterka with these kind of buttons was for field use?

[Komandir RKKA]

These are metall buttons usually used on soldiers breechez - another evidence that photo is wartime made.

[StuGIII]

Vasili

Perhaps being in a rear area city like Perm, Vasili had been recovering from a wound in a hospital and didn't have access to his regular uniform? I believe it was also mentioned earlier that the way he signed the photo was a bit more formal, like mentioning that he was Russian soldier Batalov Vasili. Perhaps he'd recovered from a wound and before heading back to his unit, he gave this photo to a nurse? As for a date for the photo. Since he has the Capture of Berlin medal and that was created on June 9, 1945, I feel the photo was taken say in August or September of 1945. Would that make sense?

[Komandir RKKA]

You are right about nurse and date of photo . "Good friend" or more close "dear friend" is usual address to woman in Soviet Union those times.
Probably his friend-nurse wasn't ethnik russian, that's whay he used "russian soldier" words.