Halp Me [Read This Inscription]

Chanus

As the story goes, my great-great grandfather was awarded a pocket watch by the Czar of Russia as a reward for exception marksmanship in the Crimean War.

Now, as far as I know, he's from Alsace-Lorraine, so maybe grandma meant Prussia? I dunno. The script looks German and not Cyrillic. I can't read either, so I have no idea.

Anyone able to decipher it?

Aioua

That's almost certainly Cyrillic, they have cursive and script forms that are closer to Latin scripts.

Big giveaway is that 'н' at the end of the first line. No little H's in german.

Chanus

well that means grandma wasn't necessarily wrong I guess :P

credeiki

This is cyrillic, but it's really hard (for me) to read the foofy script, and also I think it has a character that isn't particularly used in modern Russian after spelling reform many decades ago.

I don't speak enough Russian/can't decipher the cursive well enough to get the whole thing word for word but the first two words are "for excellent", the third could probably be marksmanship (it seems to say glazomuirn?, and glaza are eyes, so...idk), the 4th word I can't tell, the 5th word is "demonstrated" (um, I think).
Third line is "153rd Bakinsk Regiment".

I wonder what the letters M. U. O. on the next line mean.

Cool heirloom!

ceres

I don't know what it says, but it is definitely Cyrillic.

kaliyama

Chanus wrote: »

As the story goes, my great-great grandfather was awarded a pocket watch by the Czar of Russia as a reward for exception marksmanship in the Crimean War.

Now, as far as I know, he's from Alsace-Lorraine, so maybe grandma meant Prussia? I dunno. The script looks German and not Cyrillic. I can't read either, so I have no idea.

Anyone able to decipher it?

Your relative could have been a volga german http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_Germans or, a baltic german http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Germans, or some other group of ethnic germans that were disproportionately represented in the institutions of imperial russia thanks to their western outlook, superior wealth, education, and literacy.

Chanus

Cool deal. Pretty neat now knowing the regiment name and number. Maybe I can use that to learn more stuff.

Thanks for the help!

Chanus

Interestingly, it looks like Bakinsk may have been a county in the German Volga Region of Russia. The only reference to Bakinsk I can find mentions that Novotroitsk is a city within it, which is now part of Orenburg Oblast.

Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat

minirhyder

This is Ukranian. From the 153rd Bakinskiy Infantry Regiment from Crimea. It's for excellent distance recognition, which I guess is marksmanship.

Edit: the Wikipedia article on the regiment. It's in Russian, unfortunately, but better than nothing

Chanus

You are the coolest.