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Vatican City 1987, The logistics and minefields of a Papal visit

Pope John Paul II was known for his many journeys. In the early years it could almost be likened to barnstorming with up to 8 events a day. Todays much older Popes try for a less tiring two audiences a day while traveling. Keeping the operation smooth so His Eminance can achieve his goals sometimes proves difficult. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult berverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The image chosen for this stamp marking the 10 hour 1985 visit to the Liechtenstein is quite traditional with well scrubbed children in folk attire receiving an audience and blessing. It does not display the issue of the trip, whether abortion restrictions should be abandoned.

Todays stamp is issue A236, a 500 Lira stamp issued by Vatican City on October 27th, 1987. It was an 8 stamp issue in various denominations marking trips Pope John Paul II had made in 1985 and 1986. According to the Scott catalog. the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

A Papal visit is planned several years in advance. The process starts with an invitation from both the country and the local Catholic church. In this case the invitation was accepted, Liechtenstein was a traditional, 85 percent Catholic country that had only just gave women the right to vote. There was a worry that via a referendum the rules against abortion would be liberalized. The Pope thus decided to visit and make the arguement for keeping the standards.

A Vatican team of about 15 than makes a pre visit to prioritize the possible events and map out the logistics. On this trip the Pope had special audiences with Catholic youth and the Royal Family. 20 staffers including 6 security agents were part of the Pope’s entourage. They also made room for about 30 journalist.

This was in some ways a strange visit. The entire country had only 26,000 people at the time. The crowds at the Papal events were estimated at over 30,000. It was also a country with a very high standard of living and little poverty. It was estimated that there were 6 unemployed among the workforce of 16,000. The Pope threaded the line carefully acknowledging the achievement while displaying concern that wealth can led to apostasy.

Stamps were important in period Liechtenstein. Here was the visit’s first day cover

The abortion restrictions in Liechtenstein were the strictest in Europe. It was only allowed in cases of extreme medical distress of the mother or in cases of rape where the victim is below the age of 14. Violating the rules would result in 2 years in jail and loss of medical license by the doctor and one year in jail for the mother. Those that advocated changing the law estimated that 50 women and girls a year crossed the border to obtain a legal, safe abortion.

Pope John Paul II made some of his most direct statements against abortion in Liechtenstein. He described abortion as a repulsive crime and urged people to save the unborn human from the threat of the born man who would usurp the unborn’s rights by killing in the womb. He further said it was the duty of Christian politicians to stand up for the teachings of the Church which he pledged would never change. He received a pledge from then Prince Regent Hans Adam to veto an unCatholic outcome in any referendum.

The other side of the argument

It was thought at the time the referendum to change the abortion law would come very soon. In fact, it did not come until 2011 when a referendum to allow abortion up to 13 weeks and in cases where the child will have a disability was defeated with 52 percent against. The Prince Regent, by then Alois, did not have to use his veto. He said he would have.

Well my drink is empty. Come again on Monday when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Turks & Caicos 1981, Every British subject has the right to rake the salt, but no colony can have it’s own colony

Turks and Caicos is still a British Colony, now styled British Overseas Territory. This became possible because somebody eventually decided to live there. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is a pleasant Commonwealth style issue showing fish. The Queen Angelfish is indeed present in the ocean area around the islands. The angelfish are something less than angelic. In aquariums they are known to fight each other. There is also the issue that they tend to chew on coral reefs. They can be forgiven of course because they don’t understand the climate crime they are committing.

Todays stamp is issue A69, a 20 cent stamp issued by the British self governing colony of Turks and Caicos on December 15th, 1981. This was a 28 stamp issue in different denominations that came out over five years. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2.50 used.

There is evidence that a Lucayan Indian outpost existed on the island before it was spotted by Europeans but they were long gone. The first person to try to live on the islands was in 1709 when English colonist Bernard Caicos arrived. He thought himself of long ago Ottoman heritage explaining the Turk name. At the end of the American revolutionary war, 40 Crown Loyalists from Georgia and South Carolina were granted land to replace land seized from them. They brought with them 1000 slaves and grew sisal, a fiber used in ropes.

1763 French map of area

The big industry on the islands was however raking salt. Bermudan and Bahamians came in seasonally to get the salt, which was quite valuable then for food preservation. Turks and Caicos salt passed through trading houses in Bermuda and sold all along the east coast of North America. The trading got so lucrative that Bermuda petitioned the Crown to be given authority over Turks and Caicos, so they could exclude the Bahamians. The government ruled that no colony could itself have a colony and that any British subject had a right to rake the salt. Some may say non conguently, they then beefed up the administration from Jamaica. After first Jamaica then Bahamas became independant, Turks and Caicos was granted it’s own Governor and self rule. The position of both political parties is eventual independence but not now, as it would interfere with the tax haven status.

Salt raking

Being a colony has been a boon for good governance. In the early 2000s a string of three locally elected Premiers were arrested on charges of stealing, drug running, and even sexual assault. After a British Parliamentary inquiry it was decided to revoke self government until reforms and financial controls could be put in place. Since the return to self rule, there have been two Premiers. Neither has been arrested to date.

Turks and Caicos current Premier

 

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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Guinea 1967, A Spanish bouncer effectively imagines a struggle for fellow imaginers

The goal of bringing third worlders in via connected people grants  is for them to benefit from first world progress and for the first worlder to learn about hardships from the new arrival. What happens though when the third worlders attracted are their rich, connected and in Jose Vela Zanetti’s case not even a third worlder. Interestingly the Guggenheim fellowship that brought Zanetti to New York has been suspended indefinitely over worries over it’s efficacy. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offerring from The Philatelist.

This stamp displays Mankind’s Struggle for a Lasting Peace, a mural painted by Jose Vela Zanetti that sits in the hallway outside the Security Council chamber in the United Nations New York headquarters. The image on the stamp has little to do with Guinea. When your third worlders are fake and have benefited from a many year education in Tuscany, there is an advantage in that he understands as a fellow cosplayer in any real struggle what the UN wanted. An image rich in the pornography of the toiling of the third worlder with any devine purpose or hope edited out.

Todays stamp is issue AP7, a fifty franc air mail stamp issued by independent Guinea on November 11th, 1967. This was a three stamp and one souvenir sheet issue displaying the art collection of the United Nations Security Council. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents canceled to order.

Jose Vela Zanetti was born into a rich family in Burgos, Spain. He showed an interest in art and studied in Leon and Madrid. With the Spanish Civil War heating up, the family got him a scholarship to continue his studies in peaceful Florence, Italy. The victory of what Jose felt was the wrong side in 1939 left him with a conundrum over where to bounce next. Stay in an Italy gearing up for war again on the wrong side or bounce back to peaceful Spain where his politics may be a hinderance. As with several other exiled Spanish artists, Jose moved to the peaceful Dominican Republic.

Jose Vela Zanetti

Jose hit the ground running in the D. R. Within a year of his arrival he hosted his first solo art show. Giving the audience what it wanted, he impresed the D. R.’s right wing dictator Trujillo. Soon he was inundated with commissions to put his murals in many of the new public buildings going up at the time. He was also named a Professor of Art at the local university and eventually named the Dean.

There was however the problem of being a big fish in a small pond. Jose applied for and received a Latin America oriented  Guggenheim Fellowship in 1951. The idea was to bring in the Latin American artist mid career and giving him enough money to live for a few years in the hope that he or she will do their best work. This is what happened for Jose. He quickly applied for and won the commission from the UN for the mural that appears on the stamp. It is his most famous work.

In 1960, Jose inherited the estate that he grew up in. Despite Franco, he moved back to Burgos, Spain with his wife and son. His art shifted from murals to paintings and the subject matter shifted from the political to landscapes. He lived there another 39 years.

A later landscape

Well my drink is empty. I will pour another for the bouncing cosplayers, it is where the world is heading, Mr. Vela Zanetti just got there early. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Australia 1996, Who sank the boat, don’t worry I won’t spoil it

Australia has maintained a vibrant children’s book industry. How it came about, and how it is maintained is an interesting story. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp issue features books that have won the Australian Children’s Book of the year award. This stamp features Who Sunk the Boat, a 1983 winner that was written and illustrated by New Zealander Pamela Allen. It tells a story designed for adults to read to small children in a sing songy way of 4 animals debating who ruined their day sailing by sinking the boat. I won’t spoil the ending.

Todays stamp is issue A514, a 45 cent stamp issued by Australia on July 4th, 1996. It was a four stamp issue all in the same denomination. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1 USA used.

In 1945 two American ladies stationed in Australia with the USA Information Library suggested a children books week in Australia modeled on what was happening in the USA. It was to be a partnership of teachers, librarians, booksellers and publishers. Once the organization got going it decided to give out a children’s book of the year award though in the first years it was only awarded intermittently. In 1966, Australian government grants replaced the foreign aid and the organization grew exponentially. Perhaps too much as in 1988 the government pulled funding. For 5 years after the Myers Department Store chain paid the bill but afterwards funding as come via a non profit foundation.

Pamela Allen was born in New Zealand in 1934 was college educated and served as a teacher. In 1977 Allen and her sculptor husband moved to Sydney and the first of her 30 children’s books came out in 1980. Eight of them were pieced together into a play that was performed in 2004 at the Sydney Opera House. In 2008 Allen semi retired back to New Zealand. In Australia, Penguin Books commissioned Allen’s Melbourne based glass sculptor daughter Ruth to produce a piece of art to celebrate 5 million copies of her mother’s books. Back in New Zealand, she was made a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Allen is still with us.

Pamela Allen
Ruth Allen’s lost wax tribute to her mother. The boat shape is a callback of her most famous book and the smooth sailing of her book sales

In case you are wondering about the 2020 award, the winner was I Need a Parrot written and illustrated by Chris McKimmie.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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Bulgaria 1982, In Vladimir Dimitrov, Bulgaria produces a Tolstoyan Fauvist hippy monk

This is one I like. Here was a small poor country that was constantly fighting it’s neighbors and yet through all that an artist arises that is both part of some of the big international movements going on without losing his sense of where he came from and the simple beauty all around if you take time to look. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

I have been doing a lot of these 1960s and up art stamps lately where improvements in printing finally allow an art image to be appreciated on a stamp. I think it becomes more meaningful when the art is from the country issuing the stamp. A stamp is a way for a country to present itself to the wider world and where the collector can spot both what we have in common and also where a country like Bulgaria maybe does some things a little differently. The Bulgarian peasant maiden girl is presented a little differently here then a French Fauvist artist would have presented a French one.

Todays stamp is issue A1079, a 30 Stotinki stamp issued by Bulgaria on March 8th, 1982. It was a six stamp and one souvenir sheet issue remembering the birth century of artist Vladimir Dimitrov. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

As the stamp reminds, Dimitrov was born in 1882 in a small town in western Bulgaria. As a young adult, he was working as a clerk in Sophia when he decided to enroll in drawing classes. Though he at first was drawing in realistic style it was obvious to the art community what a talent had been discovered. He was employed by the government as an official war artist both for the Balkan wars and World War I. Post war he was able to travel throughout Europe exposing himself to the new Fauvist style coming out of France that emphasized bright colors and less comitment to realism. He also made contacts through which he was able to sell many of his paintings for a lot of money.

Here is where the story changes from what you might expect. Dimitrov by his nature was a hippy. He gave away vast amounts of the money he was making and returned to his home village to live almost as a chaste monk and paint Fauvist landscapes. He didn’t shave or cut his hair, did not smoke or drink, and practiced veganism.

Vladimir Dimitrov

Dimitrov was a follower of the Tolstoyan movement named after Russian author Leo Tolstoy. They didn’t believe in participating in any government or church as they were considered hopelessly corrupt. They were also pacifists that followed the simple teachings of Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount. The movement saw several communes pop up around the world that did not do well. The rich, educated, followers may have desired to get back to nature, but had no skills in agriculture.

The change to a communist government in Bulgaria in 1946 made Dimitrov back away  from some of his idealism. He even went so far as to join the communist party and recast one of his most famous earlier paintings of Madonna as a girl from the village of Shishkovzi. His accommodation allowed the regime to celebrate Bulgaria’s most famous artist in his last years.

Is she a Bulgarian imagination of the Madonna, or a simple rural women? Can’t she be both?

Well my drink is empty and Dimitrov would not want me to have another. Come again on Monday when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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India 1994, Ashoka the Great’s Sanchi Stupa tells us how it was

There are today fewer than 10 million Buddhists in India. Yet it once was the primary religion of the subcontinent. The Emperor Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism was chronicled in stone at Sanchi Stupa and also on stone pillars found throughout India. Building in stone proves very useful later as we have Ashoka’s view of his times in a way we don’t from those who left nothing permanent behind. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This stamp comes soon after the site was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. India had also named it such. This is progress as India can be fairly critiqued for not working to preserve pre Hindu heritage.

Todays stamp is issue A981, a 5 Rupee stamp issued by India on April 4th, 1994. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used.

In the second century BC, most of India, except the southern tip was ruled by the Maurya Empire from what is now the city of Patna. The Empire reached it’s height under Ashoka the Great, who ruled from 268 to 232 BC. During his time the state of Kalinga, now called Odisha, was conquered. Doing so was very costly with estimates of 100,000 deaths and 150,000 deportations, this was when there were fewer than 170 million people in the world. Ashoka was depressed about the loss of life and converted to Buddhism. With the missionary zeal of a new convert, he had the Sanchi Stupa complex built to host his marriages and to safekeep the relics of Buddhism. The site was expanded later under the Gupta Dynasty, Ashoka also sent out monks to act as missionaries as far as Siberia, Sri Lanka and the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Where ever they went were left stone pillars on which were inscribed Ashoka’s edicts. Over time the practice of Buddhism in India declined after the ruling dynasty converted to Hinduism and the practitioners were further attacked by invading Arabs and Persians.

Maurya Empire under Ashoka the Great
Ashoka’s Edicts inscribed on stone pillars.

The Sanchi Stupa was discovered in 1819 long abandoned but intact by a British Indian Army officer named Henry Taylor. For about 50 years after this British archeologists and treasure seekers took pieces away as trophies. Over time most ended up in the British Museum or the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1869, Britain put a stop to the gradual looting and in the 1920s the site was reconstructed into it’s current status under Sir John Marshal.

From the period after independence the call went out to return the trophies taken from the Sanchi Stupa. Interestingly, the calls didn’t come from India but rather Ceylon and Burma, where Buddhism is still widely practiced. The return? to Ceylon of relics in 1947 was a major public event.

Well my drink is empty. Perhaps I should take inspiration from Ashoka the Great and have my stamp stories inscribed on stone pillars. That way later generations will learn about stamp collecting long after the stamps themselves are gone. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Uzbekistan 1993, With no more silk road trade, the Tashkent Turks tire of the Boyars and the exiles and revert to Kokand

The silk road trade made Tashkent rich. It also made it a target of Turkish Khans seeking tribute. In desperation, the traders allowed themselves to be conquered by Russian Boyar adventurers hoping for good governance. Instead the silk trade was allowed to dry up and the city was flooded with exiles the Soviets didn’t trust and wanted out of the way. Maybe if they united with the rural Uzbeks and gave the Turks another try. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The question was how and how much to subdivide the Turk people of Central Asia. Tashkent went to the extreme and tried to be a city state to protect it’s wealth. The early Soviet years saw the entire area organized as semi autonomous Turkestan, the other extreme of possibilities. The Soviet break up saw a middle road, with independent Uzbekistan reverting to a new Khanate of Kokand. That is what is reflected in the new coat of arms that is more like Kokand than more recent Soviet days.

Todays stamp is issue A8, a 15 Ruble stamp issued by independant Uzbekistan on June 10th, 1993. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents cancelled to order. It is strange to see a non postal cancellation on what appears to be a bulk issue.

The Silk Road was the key to developing Tashkent. It wasn’t just Chinese silk, but also paper and gunpowder that were traded. The Turk population had to be able to interact with Chinese, Indians, Russians, and even Germans and British. The wealth and interaction changed the city and it attempted to govern itself as a city state, still under a local Turk Khan. The neighboring and formerly ruling Khanate of Kokand whose borders closely resemble modern Uzbekistan was able to reconquer Tashkent. To due so they occupied it with 30,000 defenders for the walled city.

Into this came Russian Boyar General Mikhail Chenyayev. Boyars were a multinational class of aristocrats who contract with the Czar to do  certain tasks. In Chenyayev’s case he was to bring the Russian flag to central Asia. He only had with him 1000 men. Knowing how well defended it was, the Czar had instructed him to leave Tashkent alone. Instead his small force scaled the wall in the middle of the night and killed the Kokand leader and paralized the defenses. Promising the city would be tax free and not militarily occupied, Tashkent was conquered.

As the Czar gave way to the Soviets Tashkent changed in a way that disappointed the local Turks. Cold war barriers got in the way of the old trade. In the meantime Moscow picked Tashkent for industrialization and as a place to go for eastern European exiles to whom they did not really trust. The city grew to be the fourth largest city in the Soviet Union, but the Turks were now a minority in their own city. The end of the Soviet Union saw a new Kokand form as Uzbekistan and there was a quick migration out of the exiles and Soviets. The city has not shrunk as the population was replaced by rural Uzbeks. The migration out can be spotted on modern AT&T commercials. The spokeslady, Milana Vaayntrub, was born in Tashkent in 1987, the daughter of Jewish exiles. The change saw the family emigrate to the USA when Milana was a toddler. The question is, the Soviets didn’t trust her family, nor did the Uzbeks, can AT&T?

Milana Vayntrub as Lily the AT&T lady. When she is not selling you a phone, she is advocating for Syrian refugee settlement in Europe. Interesting Tashkent doesn’t occur as a likely destination.

In recent years, China has been interested in reinvigorating silk road trade with a Chinese financed Silk Belt and Road initiative. This will not be of any good to Uzbek Tashkent. The Chinese have decided instead to route the new belt of roads and rail through Kazakhstan.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned by stamp collecting.

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Venezuela 1969, the city of Maracaibo’s founding, this stamp remembers the second of three, lets instead remember Klein-Venedig and New Nuremburg

Maracaibo is the second largest city in Venezuela. This stamp marks the cities first founding by Spanish in 1569. The Germans were there before in an earlier attempt to get a commercial colony started. I can understand why Venezuela doesn’t want to acknowledge an earlier failure, but when bankers go far and wide in search of gold, The Philatelist is there. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

This is a well printed version of the 1960s United Nations style stamp issue. Instead of showing the city on it’s anniversary in a historical context, the cities new large hospital complex is shown to imply things are getting better, Good job.

Todays stamp is issue A169, a 70 Centimoes stamp issued by Venezuela in 1969. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 45 cents used.

There are two guesses over the etemology of the name Maracaibo. Some think it marks the place where a great Indian chief Mara fell. Others think it is from the local Indian dialect meaning place where serpents run wild. Speaking of serpents, that brings us to the bankers and their earlier attempt at a city they called New Nuremburg.

The German Welser banking family made a great fortune on the Caribbean slave trade and trading with the Levant. The Welsers were officially Catholic and claimed to be related to the Byzantine general Belisarius. They loaned a great deal of money to Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was also King of Spain. In return the Welsers were granted a charter allowing them to set up a colony on the territory of modern Venezuela. The territory would have to be completely financed by the Welsers and utilize only Germans and Spaniards. The family named the colony Klein-Venedig which means little Venice. There was the normal sugar caine plantations using African slaves but the real lure was to find the mythical Indian city of Eldorado that they believed would contain a rich gold mine.

The going was not easy with many of the German colonists succumbing to tropical diseases and the local Indian attacks.10 years after the founding in 1535 Georg Von Speyer organized a new expedition into the interior with 450 German and 1500 friendly Indians to turn the colony around by finally finding Eldorado. They were gone for years and the settlements appointed a new Spanish governor in the absence of the Germans. In 1546 a few from the expedition returned empty handed now under Phillip Von Hutton. The Spanish governor did not welcome them. Instead he had them ambushed and Von Hutton was beheaded. The Welser family back in Germany sued to have the colony returned to them but their claim to it ended upon the death of Emperor Charles V in 1556. During the German absence, New Nuremburg had been abandoned in favor of a more defendable settlement  at Cabo.

A depiction of the German expedition to find Eldorado

The German adventure in Venezuela was romantized in united 19th century Germany as a basis for new German colonial adventures that also harbored dreams of colonial wealth from trading, The stories were of adventurers Von Speyer and Von Hutton, not the Welser family bankers that employed them. Remember they found no gold and the world of the sixteenth century was not yet ready to make use of the areas ample oil resources.

An imagination of the golden city of Eldorado

The finding of gold to the south in Brazil in 1695 had most of the adventures, Pizarro and Sir Walter Raliegh had also tried, gave up on finding mythical Eldorado. In 1871 gold was found in Venezuela at El Callou, and a productive mine for 12 years until the vein played out. In 2016, Venezuela formed the Orinco Mining Arc to find and exploit gold and other minerals in the area. At least they didn’t call it Eldorado.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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French Morocco 1947, Managing the turning tide against Protectorate

Mainly American forces landed and faced brief fighting with Vichy French forces. This provided an opening to end the French Protectorate, but under what terms? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Morocco’s status as a Protectorate complicates the French Moroccan stamp issues. They use the tradition of showing exotic views of the empire outpost, but edit out the French overlay. This was perhaps a tacit admission that the French were on their way out.

Todays stamp is issue A37, a 10 Centimes stamp issued by French Morocco in 1947. It was a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents unused.

The Sultan of Morocco had acquiesced to French Protectorate status. In return he retained his position. Previously there had been a similar arrangement with the Ottomans but they expected a tribute from Morocco instead of the reverse as the Sultan got from France. In the French area, there was a marked increase in economic activity, but that mainly involved colonials and long resident Jews, leaving out the Muslim majority.

In 1937 the French banned a left leaning, Muslim independence movement. The World War II years saw the French administration side with the pro German Vichy French government. The successful American landing of Operation Torch changed that. America communicated openly that at the war’s conclusion the Moroccan people could decide how they wish to be governed. This was not the position of the tiny Free French presence.

Into this, pro independence Muslims crafted a Proclamation of the Independence of Morocco. It was the same figures of the left as before but attempted to display a united front by talking up the quite modest participation of Moroccans on the Allied side of the war and claiming they wanted to be ruled by the Sultan as a King. This was in early 1944 when there was still an American military presence in Morocco.

The Sultan at first did not rise to the challenge/opportunity and the Free French were able reestablish their administration. The Sultan finally gave a speech in the then international city of Tangier referring to the Proclamation of three years before and demanding that French Morocco, Spanish Morocco, Tangier, and the Spanish Sahara be returned to him. The people responded with anti French and anti Jewish riots in the major cities. 1947 was a time when security forces were again being lead by French. Senegalese Tirailleurs were then sent in to put down the riots which they did in what Moroccans considered brutal fashion. The Sultan was sent into exile in Madagascar and the French tried to recognize his cousin as Sultan. The independence forces then on Christmas Eve set off a huge bomb in the market of Casablanca.

The Senegalese fighting on behalf of the French

The increase in violence disturbed the French and the Sultan in exile promised he could end it if he was allowed to return to his Throne. The cousin was forced into exile, first in Tangier and then in Nice, France.

One by one, the areas to Morocco have indeed come under the Sultan who rebranded himself King of Morocco. The lefty independence forces immediately passed into opposition to the Monarchy. The biggest change though was to change the place from an international place where different people mix to non Muslims voting with their feet and leaving. Even some Muslim Moroccans voted with their feet. About 1.5 million of them live in France.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

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Russia 1979, RV Vityaz moves German refugees, studies plankton and radoactive rain

This ship, the Vityaz lead quite a life, from commercial pre war use, to end of war desperate evacuations of German civilians from soon to be not German cities, to being passed around war booty, to studying plankton, to being part of the push to end cold war nuclear testing, to hosting Jacques Cousteau and Thor Heyerdahl, to being a still existing museum ship. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

The ships 40 year career in the service of three countries was coming to an end at the time of this stamp. So it made the cut on the 6 stamp research vessel stamp issue. That limits it to display it’s research work on plankton conducted by Professor Veniamin Bogorov. Perhaps one of the less interesting  periods of it’s service.

Todays stamp is issue A2271, a 2 Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on Christmas Day in 1979. It was a 6 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The ship that became the RV Vityaz was built in Bremen as the Mars and served commercially as part of the Neptun Line. It is 360 feet long and displaces 5,700 tons. In 1942 the ship was taken over by the Kriegsmarine. In late January 1945 the Mars took part in one of the navy’s largest operations of the war, Operation Hannibal. This was the evacuation of German civilians by sea from Baltic areas facing imminent Soviet occupation. The Mars ferried civilians from Konigsberg and Pillau as they were then known to peaceful but still German occupied Copenhagen. The Mars was the last German ship to make it out of Pillau.

Civilians in 1945 evacuated by sea from Pillau, the city is now called Baltiysk and is in Russia.

Seized by the British, it briefly served the Prince line as the Empire Forth. In 1946, she was passed on to the Soviet Union and went through 3 names as it was refurbished as a research vessel and allocated to the Shirshov Institute of Oceanography as the RV Vityaz. The ship’s new home port was Vladivostok.

In the mid 1950s there was a push from the political left to ban nuclear bomb testing to avoid radiation. The Soviets proposed a moratorium. Republican American President Eisenhower kept testing. There was testing in 1957 in the Nevada desert under Operation Plumbbob that due to a malfunction sent a radioactive raincloud toward Los Angeles. Embarrassed, Eisenhower limited the time, bomb size, and number of detonations of upcoming Operation Hardtack that was to take place on, above, and below unoccupied Johnston Island in the Pacific. 15 nuclear detonations occurred including the first at ultra high altitude creating the first electromagnetic pulse. It was part of anti ballistic missile research. This time there were no misfires. The USA though was embarrassed when the RV Vityaz was able to record dangerous levels of radiation in rainfall afterward despite being many miles away. On a brighter note, there was a worry that the test so high in the atmosphere would cause a hole in the ozone layer, and that does not appear to have happened.

The crater left by a nuclear detonation during Operation Hardtack

In 1979 the ship was retired from service but received a rebuilding to serve as a museum ship. It has been open to tourists in Saint Petersburg since 1994. Plankton Professor Bogorov as also seen on the stamp is the namesake of a current research vessel in Russian service.

Well my drink is empty. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.