Circular light bronze medal with eyelet for ribbon suspension; the face with the crowned ciphers of Tsars Nicholas I and Alexander II surmounted by the all-seeing eye imposed on radiant rays, the dates ‘1853-1854-1855-1856’ below; the reverse inscribed ‘НА ТЯ ГОСПОДИ УПОВАХОМЪ, ДА НЕ ПОСТЫДИМСЯ ВО ВЕКИ’ (We have set our hopes in Thee O Lord, Let us never be ashamed); on replaced correct ribbon for combatants and hexagonal metal hanger. The medal was instituted on 26 August 1856 to commemorate the Crimean War and to be awarded to enlisted men and sailors who participated in combat. The Crimean war of 1854-56 had the aim of drawing a limit to Russian advances towards the Mediterranean and also British India but could not halt the inexorable decline in Ottoman power that led eventually to Austro-Russian rivalry and conflict in the Balkans and the genesis of World War I and underlined the weakness of Russia’s governmental and social structures.
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