Red Star,0204314,Head Of Supply,6th Separate Railway Brigade,Kalinin Front

[Bill Garvy]

Record card

Record card of an awardee

Last name: Kuznetsov
First name: Konstantin
Patronymic: Vasilyevich
Rank: Major
Position and unit: Chief of the Military Supply Section of the 6th Independent Railroad Brigade

Awarded:

Awarded which order of medal: Order of the Red Star
Date of the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR: Order nr. 0822 of August 13th, 1943
Awarded for what: [Stamp: For the fighting with the German fascists]
[Blue stamp: Award issued]

Home address: Kalinin Front

Biographical particulars

1. Year of birth: 1902
2. Place of birth:
3. Party membership and period: Not a member
4. Nationality: Russian
5. Period of service in the Red Army:
6. Award documents are located in file nr.:

Awards issued:

Order or medal:
Date of issue: August 26th, 1943
Place of issue:
Number of the order or medal: 204314
Number of the award document: Temporary certificate nr. 1039455
Remarks:

Other remarks:

[Bill Garvy]

Award sheet

All fields to be filled out fully

[Pencil: Red Star]

1. Last name, first name and patronymic: Kuznetsov, Konstantin Vasilyevich
2. Rank: Major
3. Position and unit: Chief of the Military Supply Section of the 6th Independent Railroad Brigade
Nominated for: Order of the Red Star
4. Year of birth: 1902
5. Nationality: Russian
6. Party affiliation: Not a member
7. Participation in the Civil War, the subsequent combat actions to defend the USSR and the Patriotic War (where and when): Has been serving at the front during the Patriotic War since August, 1941, Kalinin Front
8. Wounds and contusions received during the Patriotic War: No
9. Since when in the Red Army: From 1922 through 1937 and since 1941
10. Drafted by which military commissariat: Military Commissariat of the Petrograd Raion, city of Leningrad
11. Awards received previously (when and for which merits): None
12. Permanent home address of the prospective awardee and the address of his family: ______________

Short, concrete description of his combat feat or merits:

Through his selfless efforts he assisted the units of the brigade between February, 1942 and March, 1943 in successfully carrying out their combat missions. The units repaired the destroyed Okhvat–Andreapol and Toropets–Velikiye Luki–Chernozem sectors of the Kalinin Railroad Line and constructed the narrow-gauge Staraya Toropa–Ilyino–Korolevshchina railroad line. He currently actively contributes to the construction of Line nr. 514 between Staraya Toropa, Ilyino, and Kresty.

In particularly severe frontline conditions, when the brigade’s units were far ahead of their base and scattered over an area hundreds of kilometers wide, and despite all difficulties, Major Kuznetsov, displaying bravery, initiative, and vigor, continuously provided the brigade’s units with provisions and equipment.

During the summer of 1942 he properly organized the haymaking on his own initiative and prepared the fodder, fully preparing the brigade’s horses for the winter of 1942–1943. For the winter he also provided the units with vegetables, which averted diseases due to a lack of vitamins.

During the spring of 1943 he displayed personal initiative when he skillfully stocked up on sowing material and in an exceptionally short space of time sowed 188 acres of land, instead of the 20 acres established by the Provisional Supply Section of the Kalinin Front, thus exceeding the plan by 900%.

For his productive efforts in the field of supplies he deserves to be awarded the Order of the Red Star.

Commander of the 6th Independent Railroad Brigade
Major General of the Technical Forces [signed] /Teryukhov/
July 23rd, 1943


He deserves to be awarded the Order of the Red Star.

Chief of the Railroad Forces of the Kalinin Front
Major General of the Technical Forces [signed] /Stupakov/
August 6th, 1943

[Bill Garvy]

Order

Secret
Copy nr. 2

[Pencil: Kalinin Front; September 11th, 1943]

Order

Of the Kalinin Front

Nr. 0822

August 13th, 1943

On behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, for the exemplary accomplishment of combat missions in the struggle with the German invaders and the valour and bravery displayed in the process, I award:

In the railroad units of the Kalinin Front:

[…]

The Order of the Red Star to:

[…]

12. Major Konstantin Vasilyevich Kuznetsov, Chief of the Military Supply Section of the 6th Independent Railroad Brigade

[…]

Commander of the Kalinin Front
Colonel General [signed] /Yeryomenko/

Member of the Military Council of the Kalinin Front
Lieutenant General [signed] /Leonov/

Front chief of staff
Lieutenant General [signed] /Kurasov/


My thanks to Auke!

[Tommy]

You have some real treasures in your Universe of Red Stars, Bill!

This gentleman sounds like my kinda guy, he looks after the horses and makes sure everyone eats their greens!

[Bill Garvy]

Major Konstantin Vasilyevich Kuznetsov's Order of the Red Star, #204314. Photographs/scans used with permission.

[CtahhR]

I don't see where the citation mentions 30 acres and 3 acres? I see 76 Hectare (187.8 acres) and 8 Hectare (19.77 acres).

I wonder just what equipment he was using to sow. If he personally tilled the area his arms will have been really wiry. Mind you delegating tilling to the unit would certainly have covered more ground (maybe 900% more!)

Also transliterating back to Cyrillic from Latin will be difficult with the y in the place of a ' in his patronymic.

[RedMaestro2]

Originally Posted by CtahhR

I don't see where the citation mentions 30 acres and 3 acres? I see 76 Hectare (187.8 acres) and 8 Hectare (19.77 acres).

Also transliterating back to Cyrillic from Latin will be difficult with the y in the place of a ' in his patronymic.

Good catch. Just a translation/interpretation error.

Hardly a difficult conversion if one has a basic understanding of cyrillic and a sense of phonetics. e=ye=e. Simple. 'e=e if you know what ' means.

:rolleyes:

[CtahhR]

I would suggest that 76 Hectare if cultivated for hay could sustain 80-120 workhorses over winter depending on severity (and lack of other nourishment).

As for the number of horses that needed to be provided for and what was grown we can only speculate. It all depends on quality of land and what was planted as to what and how many (Beasts or Men) could be sustained by it.

If oats were planted, it should have (under favourable conditions) yielded about 300 metric tonnes which is just under 12 billion calories - even more than a full English breakfast!

True transliteration is very helpful to those who still want to search podvignaroda.ru but don't have the transliteration skills. That is why apart from the Ts/C issue (which I have previously highlighted) I stick to each letter - just in case someone out there who has difficulty wants to explore. I don't want to hinder their search missing letters or adding any that are not there. Same for those who understand Cyrillic but not Latin. Transliterating is not Translating.
Then when a "found" document is either downloaded or screenshot it can be translated to see what the results of the "right price" search was.
I still have random trips through podvignaroda.com and find all sorts of great, glorious, weird and wonderful things - something I would not be able to do if I thrust a surplus of "y"s (or any other incorrect letter) into the converters or search engine.

[Bill Garvy]

I enjoy reading conversations such as these where the details of the citation can be discussed and placed in a factual perspective. One of my fascinations is determining the ages of the awardees, so I consider the Major's actions undertaken when he was in his early 40's, no small feat, demonstrating what I construe as true leadership qualities. Thank you, gentlemen, for your civilized discussion.

[Auke]

Originally Posted by CtahhR

I don't see where the citation mentions 30 acres and 3 acres? I see 76 Hectare (187.8 acres) and 8 Hectare (19.77 acres).

Good catch, my bad.

So, are we going to discuss transliterations in every topic where a different system than yours is used? Let's be honest, there's no perfect transliteration - even yours isn't fully reversible. The fact of the matter is that the Russian Cyrillic alphabet has more symbols than our Latin alphabet, so it's impossible to come up with unique Latin letters to represent the Cyrillic ones. One could introduce diacritical marks or quotation marks, but that doesn't solve the problem entirely. For example, no transliteration has found a way to romanize 'щ' using just one letter; whether you use 'shch' or 'šč', it's not one letter and it can therefore be confused for representing 'шч', which is transliterated identically. You have decided to transliterate 'ц' as 'ts', but that is also used to romanize 'тс' (as in 'советский' for example), so the same applies here, and there are many more examples. Let's face it, reversible transliterations are simply not feasible. So feel free to use Jurij and Vasil'evič and Hruščev or whatever it is you prefer, I choose to stick to Yuri and Vasilyevich and Khrushchev, which also gives people a rough idea of pronunciation.