The medallion is in solid 23 K gold, platinum and enamels. Measures 42.7 mm in height (incl. the eyelet), 37.9 mm in width; weighs 32.9 g not including the suspension and connecting link. This "WW2 type" features a rounded medallion and circular depression to the reverse.

In very fine condition. The enamel shows a very attractive luster and appears nearly perfect to the unaided eye; there are only a few small surface flakes along the outer edge of the banner that are not very noticeable and certainly not glaring or very detractive. The details of the platinum bas-relief port

The medallion is in solid 23 K gold, platinum and enamels. Measures 42.7 mm in height (incl. the eyelet), 37.9 mm in width; weighs 32.9 g not including the suspension and connecting link. This "WW2 type" features a rounded medallion and circular depression to the reverse.

In very fine condition. The enamel shows a very attractive luster and appears nearly perfect to the unaided eye; there are only a few small surface flakes along the outer edge of the banner that are not very noticeable and certainly not glaring or very detractive. The details of the platinum bas-relief portrait and golden wreath are essentially pristine. Comes on a late-1940s suspension device, a two-layer model in steel, with a relatively recent, lightly used ribbon. The connecting link appears to be original and although deformed by wear, remains sound and has not been cut.

Award Document: Order Booklet, #353254, filled out on 7 December 1945. Beside the Order of Lenin, it also shows an entry for the Order of the Red Banner, #162040. The date of the start of special privileges is 1 December 1944 which corresponds with a November 1944 award date of the first decoration, in this case the Order of the Red Banner.

Nikanov Semyonov was born in 1900 in a village of the Smolensk region of Russia. He joined the Bolshevik Party and enlisted in the Red Army in 1918, early during the Russian Civil War. The available archival records do not shed much light on his service other than the fact that in the initial months of the war, he served as deputy chief of food supplies of the 30th Army. In October - December 1941, his army took part in the defensive battle of Kalinin as a part of Kalinin Front (army group) and was deployed in the area of Volokolamsk near the main highway between Rzhev and Moscow. After the Soviets went over to the offensive in early December, the army jointly with the Soviet 1st Shock Army liberated the key town of Klin and later advanced towards Rzhev in the first of the series of unsuccessful assaults that would jointly become known as the "Rzhev Meatgrinder". At some point in December, Lt. Col. Semyonov went missing in action and was presumed dead, with his name appearing on the roster of the 30th Army's irreplaceable losses. He survived however and stayed on active duty through the end of the war, receiving the Order of the Red Banner in November 1944 and the Order of Lenin in February 1945, both for length of service in the military. As it appears from the scant available Soviet records, Semyonov's place of service at the end of WW2 was the Odessa Institute (College) of Grain Mill and Elevator Engineering (his position in this civilian higher education establishment is not mentioned anywhere, so we can only guess that he probably served as the chief of the institute's military department - roughly an equivalent of the ROTC officer training program in the US.) He retired from the military soon after the end of the war, in March 1946.

Research Materials: first page of the Order of Lenin award decree, and the relevant page from the December 1941 30th Army Roster of Personnel Losses.
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