Relics From the Past

Category: Still Life

I bought these two Soviet-era medals from a Russian WWII veteran at a market in Vilnius, Lithuania a few years ago. I got the impression that the large Russian population generally was treated like second-class citizens, without the right to pension or other social benefits. There were many elderly Russians at the market trying to sell the few things they had of value as a mean to survive. Some of them, widows of war veterans in particular, were also seen begging in the streets. A really sad story.

The medal to the left marks 80 years of the VLKSM (Youth Communist Organisation), and the one to the right is the Veteran of Labour Medal, USSR.