Brezhnev Uniform and awards

[j h beers]

I wish that I could remember the year that I heard this, but it may be of interest: a one time friend of mine was approached in Petersburg in the early 90's by enterprising young Russians who, in the manner of the guys who used to sell "feelthy peectures" of French "working" girls, offered to sell him an authentic set of Breznev's ribbon bars. He did and was happy with it until he was offered two more sets by other "entrepreneurs" before he left Russia a week later. I now own it and it is identical to the one shown earliest on this thread. The problem with it is that it has none of the correct metal appurtenances that it should have (for that matter, I think the "stars" on the some of the ribbons on the IWM are way too big). I got curious about the set and was told years ago by at least one emigre dealer that the ribbons were put together by a company that was contracted to provide them for wax effigies of Brezhnev. The workers had far more ribbon than was required for the job so, eventually, they started to grind out as many sets as they had ribbon to use until they ran out...

Most of his photos and these sets show two Czech WWII Crosses of Valor - I'm not positive that award could have been given more than once.

Regarding whether he had multiple examples of the Order of Victory - I think that since his version had a soviet "safety pin" mount rather than the screw post on the original 1940's awards, it would have been easy to move it from coat to coat - particularly since the old boy must have had a valet or two to help dress him in his dotage...