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Russian Armed Forces

My main interests in the Russian military are the medals, uniforms and insignia of Imperial and Post Imperial Russia. This research has had to utilise secondary and translated sources.

Since the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s the ability to research the Russian military have been vastly enhanced. However many of the original (primary) sources are in Russian.

I have found the two books about Russian uniforms by Adrian Streather (Soviet General & Field Rank Officer Uniforms 1955-1991 and Red & Soviet Military and Paramilitary Services: Female Uniforms 1941-1991 (Officer and Enlisted Personnel) of outstanding use in researching the Soviet uniforms. In addition Crowood Press have recently released another excellent book on Red / Soviet uniforms and militaria called Soviet Uniforms and Militaria 1917 - 1991

For identifying Russian medals there are the excellent books by Werlich (Russian Orders, Decorations and Medals) and Prince Dimitri Romanov (The Orders, Medals and History of Imperial Russia). The website http://soviet-awards.com/ is a very detailed sources of information on USSR awards.