Military-Political Academy Of The MVD Graduation Badge

[tashkentski]

interesting badge, brass. quite big, bought it in 93 from an armenian officer (off his tunic) in karabakh,

just saw the same badge in goodmans book (page 93) .Apparently it is a higher graduation badge of the military political academy of the mvd.

[otlichnik]

Unfortunately, these badges are heavily faked. There is no evidence that they were ever genuine issue badges. There are several different types of MVD higher military-politcal school badge on the market and most are fakes. The construction also matches that of current fakes and they are most often sold by vendors who stock a wide selection of fakes.

hey do not appear in the MVD museum in Moscow. Perhaps, is someone is visting there they could ask the staff about the badge.

I don't why a serving Armenian officer would wear what is supposed to be a Soviet era MVD political school badge. What branch of service was the individual? Perhaps it was a cheap uniform decoration.

Shawn

[batumskaya]

Thanks Shawn,
I got it off an armenian officer during the fighting around Karabakh. There were all kinds of armenian units, mvd, soviet army (remnants) russians and diaspora guys from USA (mainly) involved in some pretty heavy fighting. I particularly remember the guy i bought it from, because he had about 4 or 5 badges pinned to his tunic, and was involved in fighting around the Lachin corridor. He was surprised I wanted to buy his badge, but sold it. (refused to sell any others), so maybe he had the last laugh.
In Tashkent this time I met a Pulkovnik of Kgb, who is apparently the biggest collector of badges in the CIS (thats what it says in a news paper article about him, which he gave me) next time I will see his fabled collection :D and also ask him about this and some other badges I have.

Cheers
Shiva

[otlichnik]

Shiva,

Any info from other knowledgeable collectors would be great.

The frustrating thing about state security badges (where we do not have access to the official records) is that they are neither all fake nor all genuine. Some are good but how to tell which ones while avoiding the many fakes.

However, with one like yours it does not matter. nless you paid a forture for it it is a neat souveneir regardless of whether it was issue or not. How many of us can claim to have bought a badge of an officer in Karabakh???

Shawn