The top 10 Soviet military leaders have been known since the time of Stalin, although similar ratings were not compiled then. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief had his own reasons. There are exactly ten Soviet commanders awarded the Order of Victory - no more and no less. The eleventh is Stalin himself, twice, like Zhukov and Vasilevsky, who received the highest military award of the USSR.

There is reason to believe that Stalin understood the Order of Victory in a knightly, medieval sense - as a special brotherhood of people endowed with military genius and who had proven their obsession in achieving high goals. In all other respects, the holders of the Order of Victory, nine marshals and one army general, are completely different people.
Each has its own dramatic fate, its own ups and downs. None of these ten were fortune's favorites, and everything they achieved was determined by courage and work, talent and perseverance, the gift of foresight, willingness to take risks and no less willingness to answer for decisions and orders. They didn't hide behind anyone's back simply because they were first. And they won.

In 1943, after fierce and bloody battles, the Red Army began to win victory over the fascist occupiers. Moscow, Kyiv, Stalingrad, the Kursk Bulge - these are the significant milestones that served as a turning point during the Great Patriotic War. For the correct tactical and strategic developments for the successful conduct of combat operations, which entailed a sharp change in the situation in favor of the Red Army, it was decided to award senior commanders with a special order. On November 8, 1943, the Decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was signed on the establishment of the highest military order "Victory"
The project of the author of the Order of the Patriotic War, artist A.I. Kuznetsov, was approved. This order is one of the most beautiful of the existing orders. A ruby ​​convex five-pointed star, between the ends of which rays diverge, studded with 174 small diamonds. The middle of the order is made in the form of a medallion, which depicts the Kremlin wall with the Lenin Mausoleum in the form of a five-step pyramid and the Spasskaya Tower in the center (with a bright red five-pointed star; to the left and right of it the tops of two more small Kremlin towers are visible, to the right is part of the government building). Above the image is the inscription “USSR”, and below it, on a red background made of enamel, the inscription “VICTORY”. The medallion is bordered on the sides by a laurel-oak wreath. Made of gold and decorated with diamonds. The order itself is made of 47 grams of platinum. To decorate it, 2 grams of gold, 19 grams of silver, 5 carats of rubies and 16 carats of diamonds were used. The size of the star itself from one vertex to the other is 7.2 cm. The inner circle has a diameter of 3.1 cm. For convenient fastening to the jacket, a pin with a nut with ears is provided. The appearance and name are strikingly different from those that were proposed at the very beginning. Initially, it was planned to call the order “For Loyalty to the Motherland”, in the center there would be bas-relief profiles of Stalin and Lenin, then they wanted to place the coat of arms there. But we still settled on the version in which it has survived to this day.
On August 18, 1944, a sample and description of the Order of Victory ribbon and the procedure for wearing the bar with orders were approved. The statute of the order required wearing the order bar on the left one centimeter higher than all the others. Her tape uses two primary colors. This is a 1.5 centimeter red stripe on a moire background. Along the edges on the sides there are stripes of blue, green, burgundy and light blue. The edging is made with orange and black stripes. The dimensions of the plank are 4.6 cm by 0.8 cm.

On April 10, 1944, the first award of the Order of "VICTORY" took place. For the heroic liberation of right-bank Ukraine, award No. 1 was received by Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov. and Order No. 2, Chief of the General Staff A.M. Vasilevsky. In the same year, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin I.V. was awarded. The following awards took place already in the victorious year of 1945. On March 30, for the liberation of Poland, the commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front Rokossovsky K.K. and commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front Konev I.S. On the same day, Zhukov received his second order for the capture of Berlin. 20 days later, Vasilevsky was awarded for the second time for the capture of Königsberg. Over the next three months, the Order of "VICTORY" was awarded to the commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front Malinovsky R.Ya., the commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front Tolbukhin F.I., the commander of the Leningrad Front Govorov L.A. Also for planning successful military operations to the representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Timoshenko S.K. and Chief of the General Staff Antonov A.I. Following the war with Japan, the award was received by the commander of the Far Eastern Front, Meretskov K.A. In June 1945, Stalin received his second order for the victory over Germany.
Foreign leaders who took part in the liberation of German-occupied territories were not forgotten either. The recipients included General D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Western Europe B.L. Montgomery, Commander-in-Chief of the Polish troops M. Rolya-Zhimierski, Yugoslav commander Joseph Broz Tito, King of Romania Mihai I. In February 1978, L. I. Brezhnev was awarded the Order of Victory. In 1982, this award was canceled because it contradicted the statute of the order , during the war, Brezhnev did not hold positions in the senior command of the army.
In total, 20 copies of such an honorable order were created. Most of which are now in the Diamond Fund of the Russian Federation. The peculiarity of this order lies in the fact that, unlike other awards, it was not made at the Mint; the order was given to the craftsmen of the jewelry and watch factory, which was located in Moscow due to the need to perform fine jewelry work.

The Order of Victory was an elite award - both in statute (the basis is a military operation on a scale no smaller than the front) and in execution - the cost of materials alone (diamonds, rubies, platinum, gold) at current prices is at least $100,000 . But the cultural and historical significance of this award is generally impossible to assess. According to Western analysts, if one of the Victory orders were to go up for auction, the price of such a lot would reach $20 million. At the same time, the question “has such an order ever been sold on the antiques market?” still remains open. The fate of the awards presented to Soviet military commanders is known: after the death of the cavaliers, they were confiscated to Gokhran, where they are kept to this day (5 of them, the Order of Zhukov, Vasilevsky and one Order of Malinovsky were then transferred to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces). Relatives of the commander of the USSR-allied Polish Army, and subsequently the Minister of Defense of socialist Poland, Michaly Rol-Zimierski, also transferred the award of the Polish marshal to a special storage facility of the Soviet Union. The orders awarded to foreign commanders after their death were transferred to national museums. D. Eisenhower's award is kept in the Museum of the US Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas; The Order of B. Montgomery was transferred to the Imperial War Museum (London) and the Order of I. Tito was transferred to the “25 May” Museum (Belgrade).
The fate of the order awarded to the Romanian King Mihai I is unclear. The monarch received his award for the military coup he staged: in August 1944, the pro-fascist leader of Romania, Marshal Antonescu, was removed and arrested, and Mihai I announced his country’s withdrawal from the alliance with Germany and annexation her to the anti-Hitler coalition. The young king (at the time of those events he was only 23 years old) took a great risk - there were several thousand German soldiers and officers in Bucharest; if Antonescu had escaped from the set-up trap, the king would have faced an inevitable and cruel reprisal. Mihai I received his award deservedly: after his speech, the situation in the Romanian theater of military operations radically changed in favor of the Red Army - from now on, Soviet troops moved west, receiving all the necessary assistance from local authorities and the population, instead of bloody overcoming the fortified areas built by Antonescu.
But the further fate of the well-deserved award is unclear. According to the official version, the order is kept in the Mihai estate in Versoix (Switzerland), but there are reasonable doubts that the king still has the award: the fact is that after 1947, the king never wore the award. Among the king's admirers, there is an opinion that the Romanian monarch himself refused to continue wearing the order because of resentment towards the Soviet regime: despite obvious services to the USSR, in 1947 local communists removed the king and abolished the monarchy, and Mihai I himself, fearing further reprisals , hastily left the country. However, there is another version - the famous award expert S. Shishkov, citing insider sources of the Sotheby’s auction, claims that Michael I sold the order to John Rockefeller for 700 thousand dollars, and he, in turn, put the award up for auction, where it was already valued 2 million and at this price the Order of Victory was purchased by an unknown collector. Sotheby's officials traditionally remain silent on all questions about the price and even the very fact of the sale, and the king's press service issued a special statement: “Rumors about the sale of the Order of Victory have no basis. The award is kept in the Verkhois estate and the king values ​​it very much.” In 2005, Mihai I, among other honored guests, at the invitation of the Russian President, took part in the celebrations on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the victory. The king wore a ceremonial uniform with many orders and medals, but he did not have the Order of Victory.

Established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 8, 1943. The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated August 18, 1944 approved the sample and description of the ribbon of the Order of Victory, as well as the procedure for wearing the bar with the ribbon of the order.

Order status.

Order "Victory" is the highest military order. It is awarded to senior officers of the Red Army for the successful conduct of such military operations on the scale of one or several fronts, as a result of which the situation radically changes in favor of the Red Army.

For those awarded the Order of Victory, a memorial plaque is established, as a sign of special distinction, to include the names of the holders of the Order of Victory. A memorial plaque is installed in the Grand Kremlin Palace. This order is awarded only by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

The Order of Victory is worn on the left side of the chest 12-14 cm above the waist.

Description of the order.

The badge of the Order of Victory is a convex five-pointed ruby ​​star bordered with diamonds. In the spaces between the ends of the star there are diverging rays studded with diamonds. The middle of the star is a circle covered with blue enamel, bordered by a laurel-oak wreath. In the center of the circle is a golden image of the Kremlin wall with the Lenin Mausoleum and the Spasskaya Tower in the center. Above the image there is an inscription in white enamel letters “USSR”. At the bottom of the circle on a red enamel ribbon there is an inscription in white enamel letters “VICTORY”.

The badge of the order is made of platinum. The decoration of the order uses platinum, gold, silver, enamel, five artificial rubies in the rays of a star and 174 small diamonds.

The size of the star between opposite vertices is 72 mm. The diameter of the circle with the image of the Spasskaya Tower is 31 mm. The total weight of the order is 78 g. The content of platinum in the order is 47 g, gold - 2 g, silver - 19 g. The weight of each of the five rubies is 5 carats. The total weight of diamonds on the sign is 16 carats.

On the reverse side, the badge has a threaded pin with a nut for attaching the order to clothing.

Silk moire ribbon for the Order of Victory. In the middle of the tape there is a red stripe 15 mm wide. On the sides, closer to the edges, there are stripes of green, blue, burgundy and light blue. The ribbon is bordered with orange and black stripes. The total width of the tape is 46 mm. Height - 8 mm. The ribbon of the Order of Victory is worn on the left side of the chest, on a separate bar, 1 cm higher than other order ribbons.

History of the order.

The Order of Victory is the highest military order of the USSR. This military order was established simultaneously with the soldier's Order of Glory.

One of the first, in July 1943, a draft order called “For Loyalty to the Motherland” was submitted for consideration by the officer of the headquarters of the rear department of the Soviet Army, Colonel N.S. Neelov. However, Stalin did not approve of this project and work on creating a sketch for this award continued. Among the many versions of the Order of Victory submitted to the competition, preference was given to the sketch of the artist A.I. Kuznetsov, who was also the author of the Order of the Patriotic War. Initially, Kuznetsov planned to mark chest-length profile bas-reliefs of Lenin and Stalin in the center of the sign (as was the case in Neelov’s previous project), then the option of placing the Order of the State Emblem of the USSR in the center was considered. In the final version, it was decided to replace the image of the coat of arms in the center of the sign with an image of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower.

Order No. 1 was awarded to the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union, G.K. Zhukov. April 10, 1944 for the liberation of right-bank Ukraine. Zhukov received the second Order of Victory as commander of the 1st Belorussian Front on March 30, 1945 (for the capture of Berlin).

In addition to him, the following marshals were awarded (in order of award):

• Chief of the General Staff (later commander of the 3rd Belorussian Front) Vasilevsky A.M. (April 10, 1944 and April 19, 1945) - for the liberation of right-bank Ukraine and for the capture of Koenigsberg and the liberation of East Prussia.
• Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin I.V. (July 29, 1944 and June 26, 1945) - for the liberation of right-bank Ukraine and victory over Germany.
• Commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front Rokossovsky K.K. (March 30, 1945) - for the liberation of Poland.
• Commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front I.S. Konev (March 30, 1945) - for the liberation of Poland and crossing of the Oder.
• Commander of the 2nd Ukrainian Front Malinovsky R.Ya. (April 26, 1945) - for the liberation of the territories of Hungary and Austria.
• Commander of the 3rd Ukrainian Front Tolbukhin F.I. (April 26, 1945) - for the liberation of the territories of Hungary and Austria.
• Commander of the Leningrad Front Govorov L.A. (May 31, 1945) - for the liberation of the Baltic states.
• Representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Timoshenko S.K. (June 4, 1945) - for planning combat operations and coordinating the actions of the fronts throughout the war.
• Chief of the General Staff Antonov A.I. (Army General) (June 4, 1945) - for planning combat operations and coordinating the actions of the fronts throughout the war.
• Commander of the Far Eastern Front Meretskov K.A. (September 8, 1945) - following the results of the war with Japan.

Among foreign citizens this order was awarded to:

• Army General D. Eisenhower (June 5, 1945).
• Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Western Europe, Field Marshal B. L. Montgomery (5 June 1945).
• King Mihai I of Romania (July 6, 1945).
• Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Polish Army (on the territory of the USSR) General M. Rolya-Zhimierski (August 9, 1945).
• Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army, Marshal Joseph Broz Tito (9 September 1945).
  On February 20, 1978, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Marshal of the Soviet Union was awarded the Order of Victory
• Brezhnev L.I. After Brezhnev's death, the award was canceled.

Thus, it is clear that only 12 Soviet military leaders (Zhukov, Vasilevsky and Stalin - twice) and 5 foreign citizens became holders of the Order of Victory.

All insignia of the order awarded to Soviet military leaders, as well as the insignia of the order awarded to Marshal Rolya-Zhimersky, are in the Diamond Fund of Russia. Eisenhower's award is on display at his memorial museum in Abilene, Kansas. Marshal Tito's award is on display at the 25 May Museum in Belgrade. Field Marshal Montgomery's award is on display at the Imperial War Museum in London. Only one Order of Victory, which previously belonged to King Michael I, is in a private collection. According to some reports, it was sold at auction by one of the relatives of dictator Ceausescu.

In total, the Order of Victory was awarded 20 times (one of which was subsequently cancelled).

You can learn about the features and types of medals on the USSR Medals website

Approximate cost of the medal.

How much does the Order of Victory cost? Below we give the approximate price for some rooms:

The estimated value of the order in 1945 was 3,750 pounds sterling, at the moment it can be more than $100,000.

According to the current legislation of the Russian Federation, the purchase and/or sale of medals, orders, documents of the USSR and Russia is prohibited; this is all described in Article 324. Purchase or sale of official documents and state awards. You can read about this in more detail in, in which the law is described in more detail, as well as those medals, orders and documents that do not relate to this ban are described.

Established by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on November 8, 1943. The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated August 18, 1944 approved the sample and description of the ribbon of the Order of Victory, as well as the procedure for wearing the bar with the ribbon of the order.

The Order of Victory is the highest military order of the USSR, which was awarded to members of the senior command staff of the Red Army for the successful conduct of such military operations on the scale of one or several fronts, as a result of which the situation radically changed in favor of the Red Army.

It was created according to the sketches of the artist Alexander Kuznetsov.

Order of Glory

Established by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of November 8, 1943. Subsequently, the Statute of the order was partially amended by Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of February 26 and December 16, 1947 and August 8, 1957.

The Order of Glory is a military order of the USSR. It was awarded to privates and sergeants of the Red Army, and in aviation, to persons with the rank of junior lieutenant, who showed glorious feats of bravery, courage and fearlessness in battles for the Soviet Motherland.

The statute of the Order of Glory indicated the feats for which this insignia could be awarded. It could be received, for example, by the one who was the first to break into the enemy’s position, who in battle saved the banner of his unit or captured the enemy’s, who, risking his life, saved the commander in battle, who shot down a fascist plane with a personal weapon (rifle or machine gun) or destroyed up to 50 enemy soldiers, etc.

The Order of Glory had three degrees: I, II and III. The highest degree of the order was I degree. The awards were made sequentially: first with the third, then with the second and finally with the first degree.

The badge of the order was created according to the sketches of the chief artist of the CDKA, Nikolai Moskalev. It is a five-pointed star with a relief image of the Kremlin with the Spasskaya Tower in the center. The Order of Glory is worn on the left side of the chest; in the presence of other orders of the USSR, it is located after the Order of the Badge of Honor in the order of seniority of degrees.

The badge of the order of the 1st degree is made of gold, the badge of the order of the 2nd degree is made of silver, with gilding, the badge of the order of the 3rd degree is entirely silver, without gilding.

The Order is worn on a pentagonal block covered with a St. George ribbon (orange with three black longitudinal stripes).

The right to award the Order of Glory III degree was granted to commanders of divisions and corps, II degree - to commanders of armies and fronts, I degree was awarded only by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

The first full holders of the Order of Glory, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of July 22, 1944, were soldiers of the 3rd Belorussian Front - sapper Corporal Mitrofan Pitenin and intelligence officer Senior Sergeant Konstantin Shevchenko. The Orders of Glory, 1st degree, for No. 1 and No. 2 were awarded to soldiers of the Leningrad Front, Guard infantryman Senior Sergeant Nikolai Zaletov and Guard reconnaissance Sergeant Major Viktor Ivanov.

In January 1945, for the only time in the history of the award, the Order of Glory was awarded to the entire rank and file of a military unit. This honor was awarded to the first rifle battalion of the 215th Red Banner Regiment of the 77th Guards Chernigov Rifle Division for heroism in breaking through enemy defenses on the Vistula River.

In total, about 980 thousand people were awarded the Order of Glory of the 3rd degree, about 46 thousand became holders of the Order of the 2nd degree, 2,656 soldiers were awarded the Order of Glory of three degrees (including those re-awarded).

Four women became full holders of the Order of Glory: guard gunner-radio operator Sergeant Nadezhda Zhurkina-Kiek, machine gunner Sergeant Danute Staniliene-Markauskiene, medical instructor Sergeant Matryona Necheporchukova-Nazdracheva and sniper of the 86th Tartu Rifle Division Sergeant Nina Petrova.

For subsequent special feats, four holders of three Orders of Glory were awarded the highest distinction of the Motherland - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union: guard pilot junior lieutenant Ivan Drachenko, infantryman sergeant major Pavel Dubinda, artillerymen senior sergeant Nikolai Kuznetsov and guard senior sergeant Andrei Aleshin.

On January 15, 1993, the law “On the status of Heroes of the Soviet Union, Heroes of the Russian Federation and full holders of the Order of Glory” was adopted, according to which the rights of those awarded these awards were equalized. Persons awarded these awards, as well as members of their families, received the right to certain benefits in housing conditions, in the treatment of wounds and illnesses, in the use of transport, etc.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

)
One photo was taken in 1973. There are forty-one awards on it. The other one was in 2000. But this time there are only nineteen awards on the uniform. Where did the other twenty-two go?
But the strangest thing happens with the Order of Victory: for some reason it is not in the “old” photo, but in the “new” one it is. Maybe it’s not for nothing that there are alarming rumors about the mysterious disappearance of military orders: they say they are stolen and replaced with fakes? Maybe these were the orders that were going to be put up for auction at Sotheby's in London?

To find out, Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondents went to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, where awards, uniforms, weapons and personal belongings of commanders are kept.
The secret of the marshal's uniforms was revealed to us by the keeper of the awards fund, Galina Tiryudkina.
“The photograph from 2006 was taken at an exhibition at the State Historical Museum, and the photo from 1973 is in our exhibition,” explained Galina Zaurbekovna. - The fact that each of them has a different number of awards is quite understandable. The State Historical Museum twice - in 2000 and 2005 - approached us with a request to allocate the orders of military leaders, including Marshal Rokossovsky, for its exhibitions. A list of orders is attached. They did not ask for all awards, but only those in which Konstantin Konstantinovich commanded the Victory Parade.
Of course, just a request from colleagues from the State Historical Museum would not be enough to receive the award, at least temporarily. Galina Tiryudkina showed us all, so to speak, business correspondence on this matter. Here is the permission from the Ministry of Defense, here is the Ministry of Culture. Here is the act of transfer and the act of acceptance, with all the list and necessary signatures. Now all forty-one awards are in the Victory Hall of the museum on the marshal's uniform. This is what RG correspondents were personally convinced of.

What about the Order of Victory?
It turns out that the Order of Victory of Marshal Rokossovsky is kept in the Russian Presidential Administration for Personnel Issues and State Awards. Previously, this was the awards department of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. It was there that, until 1977, all awards of deceased military leaders were handed over. And there it was decided where to store these awards - whether to give them to a museum or keep them in their own funds. Rokossovsky’s “Victory” was left in the awards department back then. What then was hung on the marshal's uniform? As the custodian of the award fund said, to ensure the authenticity of the exhibition, the museum specially ordered a dummy from jewelers. Also made of precious metals, but instead of 16 carats of diamonds they used cubic zirconia. This is what visitors to the exhibition saw.
In total, the main military museum of the country houses five authentic Orders of Victory: two from Marshal Zhukov, two from Marshal Vasilevsky and one from Marshal Malinovsky. Moreover, they are hidden in museum storerooms.
Our doubts about the authenticity of the awards were dispelled by Anna Morozova, deputy head of the scientific and exhibition department. Each order, medal, token, badge that comes to the museum for storage is not only photographed, but she also personally describes it: where the enamel is chipped, a ray is bent, there is a dent or chip... Each item acquires its own personal individuality, and it is already can't be confused with anything.
And as for copies - yes, Anna Morozova admits, in our troubled times there is such an idea: to display high-quality dummies in the exhibition, and keep the originals behind seven locks in secret vaults. They will be healthier. The question, as always, comes down to money: making a truly good copy is not cheap.
Excuse me, we were surprised, the average person may not care whether he sees the original behind museum glass or almost a molecular copy. But the relatives of the order bearers are not indifferent to whether the awards of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers are in place.

The museum doesn’t see any particular problem with this either: from time to time, the descendants of the heroes visit the Central Museum and are given orders and medals. By the way, people come not for control, not because of mistrust, but simply out of spiritual need: to hold a relic in their hands, to remember a loved one, a glorious warrior ancestor. More than once Budyonny’s daughter, Malinovsky’s wife, and the relatives of Konev and Zakharov descended into the holy of holies of the award fund.
Many military leaders, veterans and order bearers are increasingly coming to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces themselves and depositing their military awards - there is a firm guarantee that after death their memory will be preserved and a trace will remain in history. And the orders washed in blood will not end up on market stalls.
This means that in London they tried to display awards that had nothing to do with Rokossovsky. Then whose?

Price of rewards on the black market
Order of Victory (16 carats of diamonds) - $4-10 million.
Orders of Kutuzov, Suvorov, Nevsky, Nakhimov, Ushakov, Khmelnitsky - 10-30 thousand dollars (depending on the degree). However, for the Order of Ushakov, 2nd degree, they offer 100 thousand dollars.
Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union - 2-10 thousand dollars.
Order of Glory - 900-3 thousand dollars
Order of Lenin - 800-6 thousand dollars
Order of the October Revolution - $500-900
Order of the Red Star - 20-10 thousand dollars
Order of the Red Banner - 50-10 thousand dollars
Order of the Patriotic War - $50-300

Medals:
"For courage" - 50-300 dollars
"For military merit" - 10-250 dollars
"For victory over Germany..." - $5-30
"Partisan of the Patriotic War" - 10-50 dollars
The investigation suggests that the most highly valued military orders among the Falerists, put up for sale at the Sotheby's auction, were stolen from the apartments of Soviet military leaders. Perhaps the trail will lead to a large organized crime group carrying out sensitive assignments for underground collectors.
Let me remind you: at the end of November the British intended to put up for auction eleven lots with Soviet awards - collections of the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner, Suvorov, Kutuzov, Ushakov, and Bogdan Khmelnitsky. Awards can be exported from Russia either by the order bearers themselves or by holders of permission for such export from Rosokhrankultura. Here it suddenly became clear that this Russian department did not give such permissions. Consequently, the British hammer was about to sell at least contraband. Or even worse - stolen or robbed. Respectable Englishmen immediately removed the dubious awards from the auction. And Russia began to study the origin of the “lots”.

From archival dust
Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov immediately ordered an internal investigation.
“We welcome Britain’s decision to remove unique Soviet orders from sale,” Sergei Ivanov told a Rossiyskaya Gazeta correspondent. “The government of this country has shown that it understands the essence of the issue and the importance of such awards for the preservation of historical memory. We, in turn, will assist Britain in identifying who these orders belonged to and how they ended up at the Sotheby's auction.
Thus began one of the most unusual investigations in the Armed Forces, in which the leading role is played not by professional detectives, but by historians. However, the police detectives also found something to do.
The investigation algorithm is as follows. The first word should be said by employees of the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense, located in Podolsk. It is here that information about each military personnel is stored, starting with the creation of the Red Army. Using the order numbers, archivists can find out the names of their owners.
And then the most difficult part begins - you need to trace the further fate of the stolen award and ultimately find the one who wanted to sell it. The RG correspondent at the Ministry of Defense was told about several options that scientists are currently working on.
If the order bearer reached Victory and died before 1977, his awards can still be found in some military museum or in the awards department of the Main Personnel Directorate of the Ministry of Defense - then relatives were obliged to hand over all orders after the death of the front-line soldier, except for the October Revolution and the Patriotic War. That is, in this case, the award came to London from some museum.
After 1977, all awards remained in the family. What if the old man had no family? Whose hands did the awards fall into? It’s fine if the veteran lived and died in Russia. But how to calculate the further path of the order in any other former republic of the USSR?

Falera over Paris

Faleristics - collecting orders, medals, badges and badges - differs unfavorably from, say, numismatics or philately in its proximity to crime. This proximity is determined by Article 324 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which prohibits trade in Soviet and Russian state awards. And what remains for collectors - to be content with only royal crosses? It is enough to take a walk along the pedestrian Arbat in Moscow, go to the Numismat store or Izmailovsky Park to see what collectors are “satisfied with”.
About four hundred awards are confiscated annually at the border alone, which criminals try to take abroad. However, the flow of smuggled “falera” does not dry up, and antique shops in Helsinki, Hamburg, Paris, and Amsterdam are filled with Soviet orders and medals. According to the most conservative police estimates, about $50 million is circulating on the Russian “black market” of awards.

Police say they simply don’t get around to “ordinary” street trading. To prove the illegality of the sale or acquisition of any award, it is necessary to carry out a lot of investigative actions and expensive examinations. And for what? To fine or imprison a hawker for three months? Moreover, it is not a fact that it will be possible to bring the case to court. The police “monkey houses” and all kinds of detention centers are already filled with types that are much more dangerous to society. And who are these collectors bothering? In general, the Ministry of Internal Affairs agreed that Article 324 is one of the most dysfunctional in the Criminal Code.
Although the falerist sellers said that the police do not deprive them of attention: from time to time someone is detained and, so to speak, “fined” without a receipt.
True, this time, after the shameful story for the country at the Sotheby's auction, police detectives seriously took up street trading. We have already found out through whose hands some of the orders put up for sale passed. Interestingly, some of the suspects are already serving sentences, albeit for other crimes. Now they may face new charges.
Hence the mystery of the investigation - there is a version that the trail will lead to an organized criminal group, and an international one. Moreover, the police hope to reach large underground collectors, who are often the main customers of high-profile thefts, robberies and even murders.

Order on Blood
Order hunters are not as harmless as they might seem. Thefts from museums are just a drop in the bucket that fuels the black market for awards. According to police experts, the lion's share of orders and medals comes directly from the apartments of front-line soldiers.
The greatest value is considered to be the awards of famous people.
In the MUR, among relatively “fresh” cases, they recall the detention of a certain Alexander Karmanov. Operatives confiscated 25 orders and 68 medals from him. Karmanov introduced himself as the director of a non-existent military museum, which he himself invented. Some scammers pretend to be journalists, archive employees, researchers, social workers, and search engines. They ingratiate themselves with old people, enter apartments and steal or replace awards with dummies.
The first high-profile “award case” happened in Moscow in 1983 - the murder of Hero of the Soviet Union Admiral Georgy Kholostyakov in his apartment. Then the investigation was personally supervised by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Yuri Andropov. The Murovites took a gang of twenty people who had already robbed many front-line soldiers in two dozen cities. At the time, such a murder seemed horrifying nonsense. Today it is almost a common thing.
Here is one of many examples of modern crime chronicles. In 2003, Yuri Gagarin's teacher, Major General Alexander Krasovsky, died: a robber locked him in a toilet, from which the elderly man could not get out.
RG's sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs hint that the orders from London are not at all of "museum" origin. Some of them have blood on them.
(IMG: http://s7.image1.org/images/2013/05/28/1/89b65f060f45cc2288c74ac5430ca6ac.jpg)

What they fought for
Often, “grateful” children and grandchildren trade in the military glory of their grandfathers. Is it possible to fill the “black market” to such a volume with only stolen awards? Why are there almost no, say, American, British or French military orders?
It is unlikely that the West, with its free trade, is much better than us in matters of morality. Moreover, in Europe there are no laws prohibiting trading in any rewards. But who in France would think of selling their grandfather’s Order of the Legion of Honor? Or in England - the Order of the Garter? After all, these awards bring and will always bring significant dividends, including money, to the family and descendants. And it doesn’t matter that other orders were established under completely different political regimes, almost in the Middle Ages. The order's statute is always unchanged.
In our country, any awards are devalued with each successive change of power. A very recent example is the cancellation by the Khasbulatov Supreme Council of all awards of the former Soviet Union. And therefore, the benefits granted to their owners.

The diamonds for the order, made of pure platinum, were taken from the royal treasury, but the rubies turned out to be synthetic

This was the highest award in the USSR, intended only for supreme military leaders. But Stalin, who ordered its creation, did not suspect that the Moscow jeweler Ivan Kazennov, a highly qualified master who inserted precious stones into the order, had deceived him. And then he revealed this secret only before his death.

In the summer of 1943, when it became clear that the USSR was winning victory over Nazi Germany, Stalin decided to create a special award specifically for senior military leaders. The task was given to several medal-winning artists at once. Colonel Nikolai Neelov, an employee of the Red Army logistics headquarters, was the first to make a sketch of the new award, which was initially called “For Loyalty to the Motherland.” However, his project was not approved. Preference was given to the sketch of Anatoly Kuznetsov, who was already the author of the Order of the Patriotic War. His design was a five-pointed star with a central round medallion on which bas-reliefs of Lenin and Stalin were placed.

The project was shown to Stalin. But he ordered to place an image of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower instead of bas-reliefs. In October, Kuznetsov presented the leader with seven new sketches, of which Stalin chose one with the inscription “Victory”, giving instructions to use platinum instead of gold, enlarge the size of the Spasskaya Tower, and make the background blue. After this, an order was received to make a test copy of the order.

Master's Courage

The order was received by the Moscow Jewelry and Watch Factory (this was the first order that was not made at the Mint). But difficulties immediately arose. There were no problems with platinum; diamonds were taken from the royal fund, but the necessary rubies for the rays of the red star were not found. A highly qualified master, Ivan Kazennov, collected them from all over Moscow, but all the precious stones were of different sizes and varied in color. What to do? The master was seized with panic, because he knew about Stalin’s order to use only materials of domestic origin for the order. But where can I get the rubies needed for the order? The deadlines were strict, and there was no time left to search for them.

Then, at his own peril and risk, Kazennov decided to use synthetic rubies for the order. He didn’t tell anyone about this, and only revealed the secret to his student before his death, many years after Stalin’s death.

Then the first Order of Victory was shown to the leader, and he liked it. Stalin ordered the production of a total of 20 pieces of this award. And on November 8, 1943, a decree was issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the establishment of the order. It was intended as a reward “to the senior command staff of the Red Army for the successful conduct of an operation on the scale of one or several fronts, as a result of which the situation radically changed in favor of the Soviet Armed Forces.”

To make the first copy of the most beautiful and expensive order in the USSR, 170 diamonds with a total weight of 16 carats and 300 grams of pure platinum, as well as rubies, which, as we already wrote, were synthetic, were used. The jewelry was allocated by special order of the Council of People's Commissars. It was also the largest order in size in the USSR - the distance between the opposite rays of the star was 72 mm. It was to be worn on the left, not the right, side of the chest on a red ribbon with stripes of green, blue, burgundy, light blue, orange and black.

Marshal Zhukov received two Orders of Victory

The first gentlemen

However, no one was immediately awarded the new order. Only on April 10, 1944, the names of its first three gentlemen became known: the owner of the order with badge No. 1 was the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front, Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov, No. 2 - Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Alexander Vasilevsky and No. 3 - Supreme Commander-in-Chief Marshal Joseph Stalin. The award was timed to coincide with the liberation of right-bank Ukraine.

Many were awarded in 1945, when Germany was defeated: Marshals Rokossovsky, Konev, Malinovsky, Tolbukhin, Govorov, Timoshenko, as well as Army General Antonov. Zhukov and Vasilevsky were awarded this order a second time in the same year. In June 1945, Stalin himself was awarded the Order of Victory for the second time, and following the results of the war with Japan, Marshal Meretskov received the award.

Awards for foreigners

The Order of Victory was also awarded to some figures from the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition: the commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav People's Liberation Army Tito, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army General Rolya-Zhimierski, the English Field Marshal Montgomery and the American General Eisenhower. The Romanian King Mihai I also received the order.

Romania, as you know, fought on the side of Nazi Germany, however, when the Red Army approached its borders, Mihai arrested dictator Antonescu, announced Romania’s withdrawal from the war and stopped all military actions against the allies. It was for this – “the courageous act of a decisive turn in Romania’s policy towards a break with Hitler’s Germany and an alliance with the United Nations,” as stated in the resolution, that Stalin decided to reward him.

The new, seventeenth, holder of the order appeared only 30 years later. He became “our dear” Leonid Ilyich, who loved to hang himself with awards. The Order of Victory was awarded to the Secretary General in February 1978, on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Soviet Army. Although Brezhnev, of course, did not have merits that would correspond to the status of this high award. However, this is precisely why he was deprived of it after his death.

Kalinin presents the Order of Victory to Stalin

Where are they now?

There are few such expensive and beautiful orders in the world. According to the recollections of Eisenhower’s adjutant, when he was awarded the Order of Victory, he spent a long time and practically counting the diamonds and stated that it was worth at least 18 thousand dollars (at prices at that time). However, American experts could not determine the value of the rubies, since they had never seen such large stones, and they did not pick them out of the order and check whether they were synthetic.

At the present time, the order is worth at least a million dollars (according to other estimates, at least four million). According to rumors, it was for this amount that King Michael I sold it to the American billionaire Rockefeller. However, the king himself never admitted to the act of sale. But when he arrived in Moscow to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Victory, he was not wearing this order, although all the king’s other awards were on his luxurious uniform.

Today the location of all other Orders of Victory is known. Awards presented to Soviet military leaders, as well as the Polish marshal, are in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces. And the awards given to foreigners are in the museums of their countries.