Order of the Red Star nr. 91393 was awarded by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of January 20, 1943 to Isaak Abramovich Epshtein, department head at Factory nr. 183 in Nizhny Tagil, Sverdlovsk Province.

Factory nr. 183 was established in Kharkov in 1896 as a manufacturing plant for locomotives. From 1932 onward, production shifted more and more to tanks, tank engines, and artillery tractors. In September 1941, a few months after the German invasion, the State Defense Committee decided to evacuate the entire plant to the city of Nizhny Tagil in the Ural Mountains. 43 trains full of people, equipment, machines, materials and semi-finished tanks were dispatched from Kharkov. The evacuation was completed in October, just before the Germans overran Kharkov.

Along with several other enterprises, the factory was set up on the premises of the Ural Railroad Car Plant (Uralvagonzavod), under the umbrella name of Ural Tank Factory (UTZ) nr. 183. It predominantly manufactured T-34 medium tanks, and by war's end 25,266 T-34 had rolled off the assembly lines - half of all T-34s ever produced.

Nr. 605/20

For the exemplary execution of the Government-ordered task to increase the output of tanks, tank diesel engines, and armored hulls, the following are to be decorated:

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With the Order of the Red Star

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233. Isaak Abramovich Epshtein, department head at a factory

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Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. Kalinin

Secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. Gorkin

Kremlin, Moscow
January 20, 1943

Order of the Red Star nr. 91393, obverse and reverse