Russian Soviet Navy KUZNETSOV AIRCRAFT CARRIER Badge Ship Sailor LMD Mint BIG A+

Description

Russian Badge Commemorating Service on the Aircraft Carrier
Admiral of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov
.
This is Guaranteed 100% ORIGINAL old piece from the late 1980s or early 90s - Not a recent issue or a replica!
The badge is massive and of beautiful quality! Made in solid brass with gilt finish and “cold” enamels, it measures approx.35 mm in height, 44.5 mm in width. The nicely detailed carrier is a separate part held by rivets.  The bottom of the badge shows emblem of Soviet naval aviation of anchor, wings and red star. The red Cyrillic inscription along the edge reads “
Адмирал
Кузнецов
” (Admiral Kuznetsov.)   The reverse has raised Soviet-era logo “LMD”) of the Leningrad Mint. There is also the name of the mint fully spelled-out on the screw plate, which is original to the badge.
The badge is in GREAT CONDITION! It shows only storage age, no visible wear of any kind. The enamels and finishes are pristine. The screw post is of full length, and its attachment is intact and sound.
The
Admiral Kuznetsov
, an aircraft carrying heavy cruiser by Soviet classification, was laid down in 1982. Kuznetsov wasn’t the cruiser's birth name – in its lifetime, it has cycled through four different names! When it was in the early project stage, the name conceived for it was
Soviet Union
. While still under construction, it was originally called
Riga
after the capital of one of the Baltic States that the Soviet Union annexed in 1939. Due to the brutal nature of the takeover and the international condemnation it caused, the name Riga was deemed politically incorrect. In 1982, the name was therefore changed to
Leonid Brezhnev
, after the former leader of the USSR who had died recently. This name, too, was short-lived – as the years after Brezhnev’s death went by, his name was no longer as revered; thus the next name change in 1987 to
Tbilisi
. This city is the capital of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. By 1990, though, riots in Georgia (along with other Soviet territories) meant that Tbilisi may not continue to be property of the USSR for long. Probably to avoid the embarrassment of changing the name should Tbilisi and Georgian republic separate from Soviet Union, they went ahead and promptly renamed the ship
Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov
. The ship was fully commissioned under this new name in January 1991. The Soviet Union itself broke apart by the end of the year, but since Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union was the official full rank of Kuznetsov during his lifetime, the name of the carrier would not be changed again. Decades later, the aging ship – at this point, Russia’s only operational full-size aircraft carrier - continues to chug along under the same name, and it famously took part in the recent Russian operations against ISIS in Syria. It is usually referred to as Admiral Kuznetsov or simply Kuznetsov by the news media, while few people are aware that its full name still has “the Soviet Union” in it.
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