Tag: Russia stamp

The early 20th century was an embarrassing time for the Russian Navy. There was an embarrassing defeat by Japan, a deadly friendly fire incident where fishing boats were mistaken for ridiculously far from home Japanese torpedo boats and this cruisers most famous shot was a blank fired under mutiny. 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 older Naval warships from the naval construction race are quite strong looking and indeed an important role for them was to project power. They had huge crews so large hulls, they were armor plated unlike modern ships and the multiple large cannons are more visually powerful than modern shipboard missile silos.

This stamp is issue A1800, a three Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on July 26th, 1970. It was a five stamp issue in various denominations showing ships of the Soviet Navy. The Aurora was 70 years old at the time of the stamp but was still a navy ship with a crew and captain to maintain the ship and handle tourists and ceremonial functions, the other vessels in the stamp set were modern. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents.

The Aurora was launched in 1900 after being constructed in Saint Petersburg. It was a 6000 ton cruiser with a crew of 650 and part of the three ship Pallada class that were designed for Pacific ocean service. As a new ship, the sailors aboard had inadequate training. In 1903, the ships set out for Port Author in the Russian far east to reinforce the ships there. While on route in the Red Sea, there were second thoughts and the heavier ships were called back. Once back home in Saint Petersburg, there were third thoughts and the ships were again ordered to the Pacific accompanied by much of the Baltic fleet.

It was here that lack of training caused a disaster. Spotting several British fishing trawlers from Hull in the North Sea, they were confused with Japanese torpedo boats and fired at. Then the fleet went into chaos firing wildly at friendly ships. Aurora was lightly damaged and lost two sailors including the ship’s chaplain.

Arriving in the Pacific the force then faced the Japanese fleet. The fleet of this period Japan was mainly British built and trained and had new tech range finders that made their big guns more accurate. The Battle or Tsushima was devastating for the Russians. Many ships were damaged or sunk with the two top admirals and many ship’s captains, including the Aurora’s dying. The damaged Aurora was made a flagship and protected some smaller and slower vessels running from the Japanese fleet. The force made it to neutral Manila and was interred there for the rest of the war.

After the post war return, Aurora was made into a much needed training ship. However a ship full of young cadets many of whom were politically radicalized was not much good to the Czar. In the February 1917 Revolution, the ship mutinied and her captain was killed to be replaced by a sailor elected from the crew. In November 1917, the mostly Bolshevik crew fired one blank round that signaled to the city the beginning of the attack on the winter palace.

The 20s-40s saw the ship again engaged in training duties and friendly show the flag foreign visits. During the Siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944, the ships 6 inch cannons were removed to form an onshore battery and the ship was heavily damaged from air strikes. Refurbished post war it resumed as a training ship before being parked permanently as a tourist ship. Firing the first (blank) shot of the 1917 revolution is thought quite noteworthy.

To last so long the ship has had much work done. In the late 1980s, the below waterline hull was cut off to be replaced by a new hull created from the original ships drawings. The old hull was sunk to create a reef. In 2013 it was suggested to by the Russian Defense Minister that the Aurora be named flagship of the Russian fleet and resume showing the flag foreign visits. The ship was duly taken to it’s original shipyard and refurbished but then instead just returned to it’s Saint Petersburg home to continue to receive tourists. Not many ships from this era survive. One that does is the Japanese battleship Makasa, that the Aurora faced at the battle of Tsushimi. Keeping these old ships painted and afloat is expensive but there are many fans. In 2009 the Makasa was fully repainted by volunteers from the current American aircraft carrier Nimitz. Admiral Chester Nimitz had previously promoted saving the Makasa during the American post war occupation.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast those that keep these giant monuments to history afloat. Come again soon when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

From 1928-1973 the economy of the Soviet Union grew faster than the rival USA. After that there was a slowing down of progress. In 1986 new leader Gorbachev blamed the slowdown on Brezhnev and started a program to bring market forces into the industrial and agricultural economy. 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 expressing the hope that the restructuring will succeed uses a great deal of traditional Soviet iconography. The whole point of the restructuring however was to redistribute from the lazy worker to the profit bottom line of the still state owned enterprise. The operation now had to make enough to pay salaries, full employment be dammed. The effort failed, but imagine if had worked. The full power of the authoritarian state was  utilized to get more out of and pay less to the worker. A hoped for workers paradise becomes paradise for management.

Todays stamp is issue A2731, a five kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on May 5th, 1988. It was a two stamp issue in the same denomination this promoting economic reform and the other political. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used or unused. 5 kopecks is now worth .065  of an American penny. A pretty poignant example of why the reforms couldn’t work. 5 kopecks wasn’t covering the cost of sending a letter yet the system worked. Suddenly raising the postage rate to meet and beat expenses required hyper inflation and a deep decrease in demand.

There was some debate inside the Soviet Union about why things became stagnant after 1973. The obvious answer was the 1970s oil shocks that saw a large increase in output being redirected to cover energy cost, a situation shared with the west. The Soviet reformers of the 1980s had different ideas. They began calling workers work shy, lazy and drunk. They say this was allowed to happen as leadership was old, grey and out of touch. For older, grey leaders like Brezhnev and Chernencko it was an easy slur.

Gorbachev gave a speech at Togellati to describe his economic reforms. Togellati was the site of one of the biggest car factories in the world. Now employment and output is down over 80 %, the factory is owned by Renault/Nissan and most exports go to Kazakhstan, which didn’t use to be exports. The idea was that GOSPLAN in Moscow would stop mapping out production and resources, but that the enterprise after filling any government orders could sell as much as it wanted for whatever it could. The government would no longer cover shortfalls but still get any profits.

The results were just disastrous. GDP in the old Soviet Union declined 64% over the 11 years after this stamp. A few oligarchs got rich but the average worker was impoverished. Even life expectancy, which peaked at 69 in 1988 dropped to 64 in the early 2000s. In 1991 Gorbachev was deposed and the Soviet Union broke up. It would be 2004 before Russian GDP exceeded pre restructuring levels. The GDP in Russia is now more than twice the old levels but wealth is much more concentrated.

Well, my drink is empty. I will pour another to toast my fellow drunk, lazy, work shy workers out there. Our leaders should be at least trying to make our lives paradise. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

The Soviet Union had within it many middle eastern types as a leftover from Czar time conquests, When life hands you lemons make lemonaide. So dutifully  the Soviets are talking up the literary geniuses from the hinterland. Here we get to meet Akop Akopian, a maybe Armenian poet. 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.

Several of the literary figures on this Soviet stamp issue have later stamp issues after their region became independant. That helps confirm that the people thought the man worth remembering. That is not the case with Akop here, though Armenia has had nearly 30 years to get to this official Soviet “People’s Poet”.

Todays stamp is issue A1518, a 4 Kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union in 1966. It was an eight stamp issue all in the same denomination. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used.

There seems to be many name variations attached to this man. For the purposes of this offering I will use his Soviet name Akop Akopian, this has the advantage of being spellable and demonstrates the fungibility of tribe in Soviet times. Akop was born in Elisabethpol, Russia in 1867. The area had been conquered from the Persians 40 years before. The city is now called Ganja and is the second largest city in independent Azerbaijan and no longer contains the volatile soup of Armenians, Russians, or Jews. The Azeris have it to themselves now after a pogrom in the last days of the Soviet Union.

Akop published his first book of poetry in 1899 five years  before he switched to the Communist Party. He mainly worked out of Tiblisi in modern day Georgia. Into the area, Akop concentrating on bringing the Socialist Realism literary method as put forth by the Soviet Maksim Gorky. The Soviets themselves seem to be a little confused about who this guy was as at different times they bestowed the title People’s Poet of Armenia SSR, People’s Poet of Georgia SSR, and People’s Poet of the Transcaucasian Federation, SSR. Notice nothing from where he was really from.

Akop’s titles include Revolution, Red Waves, Died but didn’t Disappear, and One More Cut. That last one about blood sucking, probably really got to the heart of the matter.

Even in the Soviet Union, where the arts were so lavishly supported, Akop was forced to have a day job. He was the Chief Commissar of the Soviet Georgia State Bank. Wonder if he ever won the People’s Banker title?

Well my drink is empty. Come again soon when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2021.

You have to give credit, a poet only lives to thirty, annoys 3 different governments and 4 wives and still creates enough of a following that his poems are still enjoyed 100 years later. 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.

A good looking guy with sad eyes and ready with a lyrical poem at the ready will be a hit with the ladies. Sergei Yesenin was that. For this reason the postal authority took a little extra effort with the color and staging of the stamp portrait. This is easily seen in comparison to other stamps of the period honoring similar long gone figures.

Todays stamp is issue A1120, a 40 Kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union on November 29th, 1958. It was a single stamp issue honoring the poet Sergei Yesenin. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents in its cancelled to order condition.

Sergei Yesenin was born south of Moscow in 1895 to a peasant family. His parents worked in nearby cities leaving him to be raised by his maternal grandparents. They steeped him in the Russian tradition of the lyrical poetry that would be recited and sung around rural campfires in then Imperial Russia. He was literate and began writing his own verse young and this talent allowed him to be enrolled in better schools.

Studies in Moscow and Petrograd saw Yesenin in contact with the most famous literary and artistic figures of the day. His early poems were quite religious and his first wife worked at a publisher where Yesenin was also a proofreader. Thus even before age 20 there were poems getting published and read.

The Empress Alexandra described his poems as beautiful but sad and Yesenin said in response the same thing could be said for Russia as a whole. Yesenin was later drafted into the Czarist army but refused to be published in a pro Czar book of poems. He was a man of the left and thought the Kerensky revolution did not go far enough to change Russia. He therefore supported the October revolution although there was some conflict with the urban Jewish aspect of the new regime. The Cheka and NKVD harassed him and saw to it that some of his more political poems were not published. Yesenin had meanwhile deserted the Kerensky Army and left his first wife and took up and married a popular actress of the time. The revolution in Russia had many people  wondering on the future of the institution of marriage and there was already a tradition of women staying in one place while a man takes a new wife in a new place.

Yesenin continued to see his popularity surge and he later took up with an American singer who he met in Moscow. She was 15 years his senior and he followed her back to the USA. He found the USA vapid and materialistic and was soon divorced again and back in Russia. He was also by now drinking quite heavily and his frequent run ins with the police were now more to do with his drinking than his politics.

At 30 he married a last time to the granddaughter of Tolstoy. He also tried to drink less and work on a new collection of poetry. He was found hanged naked in a hotel in Leningrad with a last poem of goodbye written in his blood as he did not have a pen. He was given a full state funeral and there were several suicides among his female fans.

There is speculation that his suicide was staged by the secret police with evidence of a struggle in his hotel room and his blood written poem having perhaps come from the year before. Either way, he died young and left a good looking corps. A good way to add to his mystique. Interestingly at the time of this stamp, 1958, some of his poems were still banned. The full collection was finally published in 1966.

Well my drink is empty and I think I will have a few more while I read a few of Yesenin’s poems translated. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.