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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Wehwalt, post: 2207654, member: 33595&quot;]I bought a fair number of medals in Saint Petersburg, the Russians are big on medals&nbsp; Many tourist attractions had vending machines that dispensed medals in exchange (usually) for 100 rubles, less than two bucks. The two top left and top center and the one at the lower right are from that, and are 35mm for scale.&nbsp; The Savior on the Spilled Blood bimetallic medal was 50 rubles, but I had to buy two as I didn&#039;t have change.&nbsp; That church (now a museum) and Saint Isaac&#039;s Cathedral (both very ornate churches now museums) sell their own for 50 rubles via machine and the other&#039;s for 100 rubles at the souvenir counter. The one with the sea life is from an aquarium in Saint Petersburg.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Russians seem big on medals even today.&nbsp; You will note the medal with the map of Crimea on one side and Putin on the other (I wound up with four Putin medals), all the same size.&nbsp; The packet with two coins I got at a kiosk, it cost way more than face value (those are 10 ruble coins, maybe 20 cents, and the envelope was five bucks).&nbsp; They are to commemorate Crimea and Sebastopol becoming part of Russia.&nbsp; The monument (also on the coin) is at Sebastopol, the monument to the scuttled ships (to block the harbor during the Crimean war), it is fairly emblematic of the city and also evokes its Russian past).[ATTACH=full]430908[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]430909[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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