Finns In The Red Army - M36 Edited for Red Army Use?

[Aleksander P]

Super, never seen it.

Respective order signeb by Leo Trotsky.

A nice award indeed! I wonder how many are in private collections.

[Mehti Safarov]

->

Re this very badge.

[Aleksander P]

->

Re this very badge.

Thanks for the link, looks so great with the enamel . There is one for sale at russfront.ru, but I definitely don't know how to identify an authentic piece.

[Mehti Safarov]

Yea, seems to be very controversial discussion on that link. As far as I understood this pattern is regarded an authentic one - for comparison.

[Aleksander P]

Yea, seems to be very controversial discussion on that link. As far as I understood this pattern is regarded an authentic one - for comparison.

Thank you! One of my dream items to own.

[Aleksander P]

Toivo Vähä (used the name Ivan Mihailovits Petrov in the Soviet Union).

Vähä fled to the RSFSR after the Finnish Civil War. He completed the International Red Officers school on 1923 and the Border Guards officer school on 1928. Vähä was imprisoned in 1939 as "the enemy of the people" (this was a common fate to many Finns in the Soviet Union). Vähä was released from the prisoner camp, because of high demand of officers after the Stalin's purges during the late 30's. Vähä gained the title of a major in 1940 and was the commander of the 936th regiment during the war. He was seriously wounded in the battles for Staraya Russia (12-15 August 1941).

Interesting figure. I need to find more information about him. The current information I found on Finnish and Russian websites.