Orders, Decorations and Medals

A scarce group of decorations awarded to Doctor Alex Peter Afanasieff, a Russian medical practitioner in Chinese Turkestan and later District Medical Superintendent to the Eastern Chinese Railway at Tsitsihar, Manchuria

China, Empire, Order of the Double Dragon, 2nd type, 3rd class, 3rd grade neck badge, silver, gilt and enamels, 76 mm, blue glass central stone, smooth coral top stone, complete with neck cravat in its black lacquer case of issue with outer cotton wrap, together with original Chinese language award certificate to ‘Alex Peter Afanasieff, Russian physician and associate consul of the Russian Consulate in the city of Ili (Kuldja) in Sin-Kiang province, September 10, 1911’

Japan, Red Cross Medal, in its wooden box of issue, together with original Japanese language award certificate

Russia, Badge for Medical Doctors with the Degree of General Practitioner, silver and gilt, with backplate but lacking screw fitting, stamped with maker’s mark and Mocsow Kokoshnik mark (Werlich 76)

Russia, Badge of the 13th Dragoon Regiment of Field Marshal Count Minikh, silver-gilt and enamels, inscribed on the reverse ‘No. 70’ and stamped with maker’s mark for Dmitri Osipov and St Petersburg Kokoshnik mark, with silver backplate and screw fitting, in its fitted D. Osipov, St Petersburg jeweller’s case of issue, generally good very fine or better (4) £800-1000

Doctor Alex Peter Afanasieff was born in the city of Moscow on 14 March, 1881. After completing classical gymnasium, he studied at the Imperial Military Academy in St Petersburg, graduating in 1904 with the degree of physician and surgeon. From 1904 to 1908 he received his first appointment with the Imperial Cavalry Regiment, then stationed near Warsaw in Poland. He was later appointed to serve with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, subsequently being posted to the Russian Consulate in the city of Kuldja, in Sin-Kiang province (Chinese Turkestan) as medical practitioner, where he took charge of a newly opened hospital. In recognition of his services there, he was presented with the Order of the Double Dragon by the Chinese Government. In 1912, whilst on six months vacation in Russia, Doctor Afanasieff took a medical post graduate course at the St Helena Clinic in St Petersburg, and was later posted to the Russian Consulate located in Tsitsihar, Manchuria. In 1922 he was appointed District Medical Superintendent to the Eastern Chinese Railway in the town of Tsitsihar until 1925, when he emigrated with his family to Canada. He passed the medical examinations in 1931 at the University of Saskatchewan and practised in Big River, Saskatchewan, until his death on 20 February 1951. Sold with some additional research including a photocopy of a studio photograph of the Doctor with his wife taken in 1912.