Question on Soviet Medal Research

[Bill D.]

Does anyone know if unnumbered awards can be researched with a recipient's name?

I'm speaking here of an unnumbered "Medal for Combat Service" that was awarded in 1950 according to the award book.

I tried to research the name on the Russian Archives website. Most all of the Combat Service medals that I found to an individual with the name (николаев, петр алексеевиц) were numbered. However, I found this file in which the Medal for Combat Service seems to have a far higher number than has ever been mentioned (80 million, if I'm reading it correctly ?).

So I'm trying to figure this out to determine whether, if you look up a name in the archives, there is something that tells you that the actual medal was unnumbered?

[desantnik]

Your name is very common in Russian.

An unnumbered awarding from the '50s was either for a "catch-up" award, for wounds, or most likely, 10-years' long service. The 80M number is the archives location. Some 3.3M Combat Service Medals were numbered and maybe another 1M(?) unnumbered.

[Bill D.]

Thanks, Desantnik.
A search of the archives website only gave me three pages of identical names, but all of the "Combat Service" medals to individuals with this name were numbered examples if I was reading the website correctly. This was the only award of that medal that did not appear to have a number given.

[Bill D.]

Page of the award book:

[Ferdinand]

but all of the "Combat Service" medals to individuals with this name were numbered examples if I was reading the website correctly.

The number is some sort of ID number the website uses, it's not the serial number of the medal. You will need to ask a real researcher to conduct research and link the medal's serial number to a name.

[Ferdinand]

By the way, the Podvig Naroda project only deals with wartime awards, so the documents for your medal are not and will not be in the database.

[juoneen]

I understand they are not very expensive unnumbered. I believe i saw them priced around 20. without any books...(just the medal) is that right?

[Bill D.]

Thank you, Ferdinand !
That is very good information to have.

[Komandir RKKA]

In this case that is right but you also should remember that the Podvignaroda database is not complete.

[Bill D.]

In this case that is right but you also should remember that the Podvignaroda database is not complete.

Thank you, KRKKA.
Excellent point!
I had that in mind while I was trying to search.

[seb16trs]

By the way, the Podvig Naroda project only deals with wartime awards, so the documents for your medal are not and will not be in the database.

hello, are you sure about this fact? Because they didn't finish to browse the archives (and the 1945/1946 years are huge) and they will have to deal with the postwar years which represent many catch-up awards...