Last Alexander Nevsky Order Presented to War Veteran

[matteti]

Don't remember if this was posted before, but I had this article in my archive and thought it was interesting.
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April 27th, 2005
http://eng.9may.ru/eng_news/m13868

Last Alexander Nevsky Order Presented to War Veteran

ST. PETERSBURG, April 27 (RIA Novosti correspondent Anna Novak) – The last order of Alexander Nevsky has been presented to war veteran Bronislav Bartkovsky, who will be 84 on May 9.

The ceremony was attended by officials from the defense ministry, the foreign ministry’s Russian Center Abroad and the city administration. It was held within the international charity cultural and public event Alexander Nevsky, organized by the Russian Center Abroad. The event itself will begin in Moscow May 9.

Bartkovsky’s decoration papers, dated January 28, 1945, say, “During the battles to break through enemy defenses from January 14 to 16, 1945, Bartkovsky acted courageously and resolutely: when the company commander was wounded, Bartkovsky took his place and led the company in battle for the villages of Yaskulovo and Popovo-Borove. At the settlement of Novo-Ves, the company encircled and liquidated a group of Germans under the clever and confident command of Bartkovsky, who was an example of courage and fearlessness, and hence merits the order of Alexander Nevsky.”

This order is the “youngest” of orders granted to military commanders and the only one to have only one class. Many collectors think it is the most beautiful of Soviet orders.

It is made of silver in the form of a convex five-cornered star placed on a ten-corner plate of diverging polished rays. In the middle of the star is a round shield with a relief portrait of Alexander Nevsky and the inscription of his name.

Since there are no portraits of the famous military leader, the artists who made the order used the picture of actor Nikolai Cherkasov who played Alexander Nevsky in the film of the same name.

The first order of Alexander Nevsky was granted to Ivan Ruban, commander of a Marines battalion of the 154th Motorized Infantry Brigade, for repelling the attack of a Nazi regiment on the Don in August 1942.

The order was granted during the war to more than 42,000 Soviet servicemen, about 70 foreign generals and officers, and over 1,470 military units that wear the order on their banners.

Bartkovsky’s order became the last in the history of the Great Patriotic War that had not been presented to its holder. In all, about a million wartime decorations had not been presented to their owners.

“The Defense Ministry is doing its best to find the heroes and present their decorations to them,” Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had told journalists