Awarding ceremonies for civilian awards

[Tal Inbar]

Some questions:

1. Where awarding cearmony held for civilians?
2. Where?
3. It could be assume that highest awards (Lenin, Personal courage) were
awarded by high level officials. any pictures?
4. regarding common orders (RBL) and medals (Veteran of labour) - where
and how those awards were given?
5. Regarding research - is there a central archive where all civilian awards are
on record?


Tal

[Keith]

Tal,

Attached is an invitation for Kristof Väär to receive his Estonian State Prize at an award ceremony held at the main chamber of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR.

I have researched some Estonian civilian awards and many of the citations are listed in the Riigi Teataja, which is the register of all laws and acts passed by the Supreme Soviet of ESSR. This is available at the National Library and State archive. Most of the awards decreed by the Supreme Soviet of ESSR are motherhood awards, there are pages and pages of these. Apparantly it took an act of the Supreme Soviet of ESSR to award a motherhood medal. So, if you have an award document with an ESSR stamp in it, you could find more that way. Perhaps all of the different republics have some equivalent.

Keith

[Dave]

Some questions:

1. Where awarding cearmony held for civilians?
2. Where?
3. It could be assume that highest awards (Lenin, Personal courage) were
awarded by high level officials. any pictures?
4. regarding common orders (RBL) and medals (Veteran of labour) - where
and how those awards were given?
5. Regarding research - is there a central archive where all civilian awards are
on record?

For the Moscow area (and for most "important" awardings) they were held in the Palace of the Supreme Soviet in the Kremlin. Somewhere on the forum is the story of the meek librarian that I worked with at RIA Novosti who was asked to give the "thank you" speech on behalf of the several hundred employees of RIA that were receiving the Badge of Honor for service during the 1980 Olympics.

Most of my other co-workers at RIA also had awards... My direct boss had both the RBL and Badge of Honor. Most of my co-workers had the Badge of Honor, and they considered my boss as somewhat special for having an RBL also. From the people I asked, all of the awardings had been done in the Palace of Supreme Soviet.

One of the things I still kick myself about... Not offering to buy their awards! (They never wore them, and honestly, were quite indifferent to them...)

As far as the research is concerned, the answer is no. The labor awards were given out by each ministry, and thus, each ministry kept the citations. The military kept labor award citations, but I've only seen one (for an RBL). While it wouldn't be difficult to get the citations, it isn't done purely from the hassle standpoint of contacting individual ministries and getting the citations. Likewise, unless someone knew (for certain) what ministry awarded what award, it is impossible to figure it out on the basis of the award number.

--Dave

[Kim]

Here is a pic I found of Kalinin awarding HSL and order of Lenin to I.F. Tevosyan and V.V. Vakhryshev. Perhaps the place is Kalinins office, it looks rather informal.

Also notice the guy to the left. Many, if not all, of us has this mans autograph! It’s A.F: Gorkin secretary of the supreme soviet.

/Kim