Awards and award booklet of Alexander Gavrilovich Ivanov. Lenfilm's film historian, Alexander Pozdnyakov, commented on Ivanov's winning of the military and labor versions of the Red Banner: "There were two types of the Order of the Red Banner - Red Labour Banner and Red Battle Banner. All of his artistic life was tied with a military topic in film, his films were watched by millions and millions and that was enough to get such high marks of respect. Behind the Iron Curtain, cinema was the most important art as Lenin said. And an instrument of ideological influence as Stalin thought. So for Ivanov film was a Labour as well as a Battle".

"CIVIL WORKER ALEXANDER IVANOV" UNMASKED!..page 2
By Henry Sakaida

Obtaining the funds to purchase this set was a major undertaking! This is the down side of buying a high end item…it takes serious money. My secret stash (all married collectors have them, let's not kid ourselves!) was almost depleted. I turned to my teenage son for a short term loan, but he warned me that he charges usurious rates, which would put loan sharks to shame! "You should crawl to mom" he suggested.
In desperation, I decided to hit up my old buddy (serious collectors all should have collector buddies who understand our special "I gotta have it!" situations!) for a loan. He came through with half the amount. Then I decided to be a "man" and beg my wife for the other half. Talk about a skilled negotiator! Well, the Ivanov set was going to be my birthday, Father's Day, Christmas, and wedding anniversary gift for the next 10 years! And I had to surrender my "Get out of the doghouse card" (every married man should have one of those!). And there were more concessions.
I bought the set and slowly started to see if I could make it give up its story. I contacted a dealer and he tried to get me the records from the archives and failed. Next, I tried my friend in Moscow, who has an aunt working for Internal Affairs. She wrote back that her aunt could not access the personnel files. I then asked my friend to check the prestigious Novodevichiye Cemetery where many notables are buried…and zilch. I wrote to the CIA and asked for any information on Ivanov, under the Freedom of Information Act. They wrote back, saying that information on foreign intelligence personnel cannot be released to the public.
Finally, I emailed Valery Skhomorokhov in Moscow, who runs the Soviet Heroes website at WWW.WARHEROES.RU. BINGO! He simply typed the guy's name into a Russian Internet search engine and out popped Alexander Ivanov's biography and photos! Civil Worker Alexander Gavrilovich Ivanov turned out not to be a KGB man at all! Instead, he was a famous actor, stage manager, film producer, and cinema playwright! He was born in 1898 in the village Davydovo of the present Borovichi area of the Novgorod region. He was a participant in the Civil War (1918-1920). Ivanov finished cinema school in Leningrad, and then completed post graduate courses in the State Research Institute of Art Study in 1935.