Separate Operational Purpose Division
The Separate Operational Purpose Division or ODON, formerly called OMSDON, is a rapid deployment internal security division of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR and then the Russian Federation, currently part of the National Guard Forces Command of the Russian Federation. ODON is an initialism for Отдельная дивизия оперативного назначения.
ODON soldiers marching in Alexander Garden on Victory Day in 2015.
ODON division servicemen from Russian Internal Troops. Photo by Vitaly Kuzmin
Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Bolshevik revolutionary and politician. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first two Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU, establishing state security organs for the post-revolutionary Soviet regime. He was one of the architects of the Red Terror and de-Cossackization.
Dzerzhinsky in 1918
Dzerzhinsky pictured with wife Sofia and son Janek in Lugano (Switzerland), October 1918
Dzerzhinsky in 1922
Dzerzhinsky, Vsevolod Balitsky and Stanislav Redens in Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR, 1926