Medallion found by “Ingria” goes to Canada
April 17, St Petersburg University has held a ceremony to give a war medallion of the senior sergeant of the Red Army Israel Bristman who was missing in autumn in 1941 to his grand-son. The soldier’s remains were found by the student’s search element “Ingria” during the Shift of Memory in spring 2015.
Barry Bristman, a sergeant’s grand-son, came from Canada to get his grand-father’s medallion from the member of the search element “Ingria” Mariia Khodasevich who found the medallion in May 2015. The inscription on the old medallion was practically impossible to read and it took about a month to decode it, while search for the relatives was a matter of a couple of days.
Apart from the medallion, Barry Bristman got an engraved bullet casing showing information about his grand-father. He will fill in the casing with the soil where his grand-father is buried and take it to Canada.
Before the ceremony, Barry Bristman, the search element “Ingria” and its leader Evgenii Ilin visited the First Estonian settlement in Kirov district in Leningrad region where his grad-dad had died and laid flowers on his tomb in Siniavinskie Vysoty .
During the Shift of Memory in spring 2015, “Ingria” found the remains of as many as 90 soldiers and 22 medallions, many of which they managed to read and give to the soldiers’ relatives. They gave a medallion to a Red Army’s soldier Nikolay Kozhevnikov’s daughter who came from Udmurtia; sergeant Ivan Gladskikh’s son who came from Iuzhnouralsk; Red Army soldier’s daughter from Maikop who was given a medallion even in the field, and many others.
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The student’s search element “Ingria” was founded in St Petersburg University in 2000. Each year, it arranges search and archeological expeditions in Leningrad region to commemorate the Great Patriotic War’s soldiers. The remains of as many as three thousands Red Army’s soldiers were found and buried with all the solemnities.