Tag: Russia stamp

A uniquely Soviet method of exploring the Artic was from drifting ice stations. The first, North Pole 1, was celebrated by todays stamp. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your hot chocolate, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Visually the poor quality of the printing lets down this stamp. That is a shame because the true story that the stamp tells has the power to be quite inspiring. In three different ways. The obvious knowledge breakthrough has to inspire the nerd in all of us. The shear bravery of venturing out into the dangerous desolation of a floating ice drift. Also the brave patriotic act of sending out icebreaker ships into dangerous waters to find and bring back the scientists and all the knowledge they have gained. To be fair to the Soviet Postal  authority, it would be difficult to convey so much on a four stamp issue.

The stamp today is issue A251, a 30 kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union on June 21st, 1938. It features scientist Ivan Papanin and his men about to board the icebreaker ship that was to take them home after nine months on the ice station. The stamp is part of a four stamp issue celebrating the accomplishment of the successful mission. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $3.75 used. A mint imperforate version is worth $3,250.

Ivan Papanin was an explorer and scientist  who had previously lead an expedition to Franz Josef Land, an archipelago of islands north of the Soviet Union in the Artic ocean. There had been a previous theory by the Norwegian explorer Nansen of purposely letting a ship get frozen into a drifting ice block to allow it to reach artic extremes. This had been done successfully around 1910. Papanin and his Soviet team developed the idea further in the 1930s. A fully functioning science station was built on a section of drifting ice. The people and materials had been flown up by airplanes that successfully landed on the drift ice. The ice float was about 4 square kilometers and only 3 meters thick. The station contained five men. It was christened North Pole-1. It stayed in operation for nine months during which the ice station had drifted over 1700 miles.

In the days before helicopters, it was very difficult to keep up with such a station and guess as to where it might be. Two ice breakers were up to this dangerous mission. They found the ice station near Greenland and were able to evacuate the team. All of those involved were named Heroes of the Soviet Union. The expedition proved there was no large or small land mass at the North Pole.

The drifting ice station idea has continued to be used by the Soviets and still by the Russian. Some have been built on breakaway chunks of glaciers that are much less tenuous than drift ice. A few of the expeditions have lasted several years. The most recent, North Pole- 40 was in 2016.

Well my drink is empty so I will pour another to toast the brave men on North Pole-1 and the other brave men who got them there and saw to their return. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

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.

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.

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.

Russia has a long tradition of epics aimed at children that centers on noble quests ordered by the Czar where the young hero is challenged by evil spirits. A while back we did a 1914 stamp featuring questor Ilya Muromets, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/01/31/russia-1914-it-is-again-time-for-young-would-be-ilyas-to-defeat-the-german-idolishche/   . Here is a stamp from a much later era that features one of the evil or at least challenging spirits that test the questor in many Russian children’s stories, Baba Yaga. 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 more modern stamp offers bright colors and well done drawing. However Baba Yaga  has been modernized and loses a little of the idea of her challenge. The 1914 stamp was different. A real Czar was featuring an old epic to inspire his countryman on the near hopeless on all sides quest of fighting World War I. This stamp is just saying Russia had some neat characters for kids, didn’t we?

Todays stamp is issue A2924, a 10 Ruble stamp issued by Russia on February 25th, 1993. This came out as a strip of five stamps featuring modernized versions of children’s book characters. According to the Scott catalog, the strip of five stamps is worth 75 cents cancelled to order. That the catalog only bothers to list the five stamp strip together shows how little the issue was used for mailing letters. If we extrapolate the value of this single stamp at 15 cents, that makes it the least valueable stamp I have written about here and I have written over 700 articles, many on  bulk postage stamps.

Baba Yaga appears in Russian epics as early as 1755. Some think she goes back even farther in Finnish legend. Early Russian depictions often have her dressed in a Finnish style. She is an old woman with bony chicken legs and carries as weapons kitchen implements. Her desire is weed out the heroes unworthy of the quest they are on whom she then eats. If the questor passes her tests, she will give tools that will help him later.

These stories usually have some young male hero visit the Czar. He finds the Czar unhappy because he lacks something he needs. Perhaps the Czar is beset by lame horses or wives that lack for beauty, or the ever present shortage of gold. The Czar is inspired by his young visitor and gives him a challenge of traveling far to bring the Czar back what he needs. If the young hero succeeds, the Czar will make all his dreams come true.

Baba Yaga has been around a while and occasionally shows up in strange places. She is a recurring character in the “Hellboy” series of comic books. In the first John Wick movie, when the title character faces off against Russian bad guys, they refer to him as their Baba Yaga, There is also a version of her that appears in Japanese epics where she is known as Yama uba.

Well my drink is empty and this story has got me thinking the the creators of the questing game “Dungeons and Dragons” got more than a little inspiration from old Russia. Come again on Monday when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

One area where the Soviets did a good job was bringing education and literacy beyond just the Russian elite as under the Czar. This stamp from midway in that process lets me check in on what they were doing to bring that about. 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 is failed both by the low quality of the printing and the well worn condition of my copy. What the stamp is showing is children putting together poster style newspapers as part of an educational exhibition that year in Leningrad. I can’t be too mad at myself for the condition of the stamp. How miraculous is it that any of these tiny gummed and perforated little slips of paper can survive 90 years, trips around the world and multiple owners?

Todays stamp is issue A120, a 10 Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on August 15th, 1930. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $8.00 unused though that number might assume a better condition.

The educational system under the Czar regime was limited. According to the 1897 census, the literacy rate for the country was only 28%. For females that number was only 13 percent. Near the end in 1914 the regime had managed to get 91% of school age children enrolled in a school. It was slow going as almost all the schools taught in Russian rather than the native tongue of the region.

The new communist regime had high goals for education and decreed very early that school was compulsory, free, and children had a right to up to 9 years of schooling. Everyone would go for four years, some would go for seven years that would qualify them for further vocational training at the new Teknikums. Those who went the full nine years were qualified for University. With the Red and White Civil war raging the first few years saw school attendance drop from 91% down to 25% in the low year of 1920.

The regime also made a big effort to  bring literacy to adults. Young adults of Komsonal deployed to villages to offer literacy classes to adults free of charge. This program lasted between 1920-1939 and succeeded in bring literacy to older folks who had missed out on school under the old system. These classes met less resistance because they were taught in the areas native tongue. Though the Soviets generally were in agreement in the long term goal of Russification of the regions, it was simply more expedient to do it this way.

I mentioned above the problem of illiteracy was specially severe among females. A club. the Ali Bayramov Club opened up in many locations. Jeyran Bayramov was an illiterate young  widow from Baku who married her former brother in law Ali  as per Azeri tradition. Ali was a communist activist who encouraged Jeyran to pursue education and Jeyran was transformed. She founded the first club in Baku named for her husband. The club was marketed as a sewing club in order that women would be allowed out of the house by husbands and fathers. The clubs did indeed offer sewing classes but also midwifery classes, telephone operator classes and literacy classes. The Soviets got behind the clubs and even let the original one in Baku occupy to old fancy Palace of Happiness that had been the home of an Azeri oil baron. The oil baron didn’t need it anymore, he killed himself upon the Soviets entering Baku. The club members also began pushing for the unveiling of females. The clubs were shut down in 1937 by which time women were literate and unveiled.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast literacy. Without it my dear readers would just be left looking at pictures. Come again on Monday for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. Have also a nice Fourth of July, to whatever extent we are still allowed to celebrate it.

The connections of regular Soviets to the outside world blossomed with new leadership of Khrushchev and the optimism of Sputnik. With the end of colonialism there was a worldwide battle for hearts and minds. Into this opening the USA launched operation abundance to convince the average Soviet that their government was not doing enough for them with regards consumer goods. An open door goes both ways. 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 children’s drawings related to the world festivals of youth that the Soviets hosted. There is a quote from Khrushchev that stated that as long as he was President we are going to support genuine art. We are not going to give a Kopeck for the pictures of jackasses. The denomination of this stamp is 10 Kopecks. Hmm…

Todays stamp is issue A1202, a 10 Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on June 1st, 1960. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Khrushchev sought more person to person contact with the outside world to soften the harsh militaristic image put forth by his predecessor Stalin. To that end, the World Festival of Youth that promoted Communism was brought for the first time to the Soviet Union in 1957. It attracted 34,000 participants from 130 countries. There was even a new magazine for America named “Soviet Life” that presented a positive view of life in the Soviet Union. The USA agreed to allow the printings of 30,000 per month, and there was a waiting list for subscriptions. And Americans thought only Soviets waited in line.

The USA was not defenseless when it came to the new open door. The USA knew the Soviets used a much greater percentage of their output for arms. Perhaps that could be adjusted if the average Soviet, especially the females, started demanding more consumer goods. Operation Abundance backed American National Exhibition in Moscow in 1959 showed off all manner of consumer goods available in the USA. To drive the point home, then Vice President Richard Nixon engaged in an impromptu televised “kitchen debate” with Khrushchev as to why Soviets did not yet have stuff like this. His answer was that such things were junky and wasteful but then did what was hoped and began allocating more resources to the production of consumer goods.

Modern Russia is still in the business of reaching out to the world’s youth though I am not sure what he is selling politically these days. In 2017 Russia hosted another World Festival of Youth in Sochi. It attracted fewer attendees than the 1957 one but more countries sent youth.

Well my drink is empty and I will contemplate the value of closed doors. Sure seems less wasteful. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Sometimes it is nice to reflect on the dangerous work involving space flight. This stamp honors the Gagarin center for twenty years of training. Next year it will be 60 years and the center is still training cosmonauts, now under the auspices of Roskosmos, Russia’s civilian space corporation. 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.

When I spotted this stamp, I assumed I would be learning about Russian science fiction from the Soviet era. This mistake is reflective of the stamps design intention to inspire interest in the space program from the young. I am no longer young, but consider me inspired.

Todays stamp is issue A2302, a 6 Kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union on September 15th, 1980. It depicts flight training. The Soviets issued 7 stamps that day, both for the Gagarin Center anniversary and also training going on at the time of potential cosmonauts from Cuba. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents unused.

The Gagarin Cosmonaut Center was set up in secret near Moscow as military unit 26266. It contained 250 personnel under a military doctor with the purpose of training military pilots for space travel. In addition to flight training, the cosmonaut candidates had to be taught to handle g forces and to operate in a weightless environment. Equipment included simulators of the mission vessels, a centrifuge to spin the cosmonaut so his body would adjust to high g forces. There were also airplanes that could replicate weighlessness, nicknamed the vomit comet.

Yuri Gagarin became the first human to orbit the Earth in 1961. He was made a hero of the Soviet Union and traveled the world promoting the Soviet achievement. He was young, friendly, and approachable and did much to further the Soviet Space program. President Kennedy banned Gagarin from the USA however. This snub did not extend to American Apollo astronauts who were happy to meet with him at the 1965 Paris Air Show. In 1967, Gagarin was the backup pilot for the Soyuz 1 mission. That mission was ill fated and when the rocket crashed on reentry when the parachute failed to deploy, Gagarin’s cosmonaut future was reconsidered. He was banned from future missions to space but unfortunately still allowed to fly. 4 weeks later, Gagarin was killed in a training flight of a Mig 15UTI trainer when it got in a fatal spin in bad weather.

There have been many remembrances of Gagarin after his death. American astronaut Neil Armstrong left a satchel on the moon surface containing some of Gagarin’s medals. In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of Gagarin’s space orbit, the Russian, Italian, and American crew of the International Space Station wore T shirt’s with Gagarin’s image in honor of “Yuri’s Night”. A recently put up statue of Gagarin was taken down in Belgrade, Serbia when the carver gave him a head that was insultingly small. We just don’t do good statues anymore. Gagarin’s cremated remains are forever interred in the walls of the Kremlin.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Yuri Gagarin and all his fellow Cosmonauts that have come through Gagarin’s Space Center. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

It is nice when political promises get specific on a stamp, that way they can be measured by future stamp collectors. There is a joke about communism that the future is always certain, it is the past that is always changing. This stamp touts future steel production, I wonder how that turned out. 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 issue of stamps is titled “Great Decisions of the 22nd Communist Party Congress” held in 1961. I guess Soviet stamp collectors had to wait forever for the stamp issue on the more mediocre decisions. Anyway there is nothing wrong with a little hope and sunshine. I also love that they included measurable numbers to go with goals. It is more than we get from most politicians. It also must be said that the Soviets did a great job making steel production look majestic.

Todays stamp is issue A1362, a 4 Kopek stamp issued by the Soviet Union on December 28th, 1962. It was a 9 stamp issue all in the same denomination that set out goals in various industries. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents cancelled to order.

The stamp touts great decisions by the previous years party congress regarding economics. Appropriate to remind the people that the party was working for them. In reality the congress was more about politics. 83 communist parties from around the world sent delegates including the last time the red Chinese showed up. They didn’t like the disrespect toward Stalin including renamings and even moving his remains. Khrushchev was still trying to make the communist system work and proposed term limits on high officials to avoid stagnation. This was rejected. That does not mean the Soviets did not put on a show. There was a brand new hydroelectric station in not Stalingrad but now Volgograd. To demonstrate power there was also the explosion of the biggest nuclear bomb in the history of the world in the artic circle. The 50 megaton hydrogen bomb was called the Tsar Bomba by the west.

The stamp gives steel production in 1960 as 65 million metric tons  and says that number will hit 250 million metric tons by 1980. The actual 1980 number was 148 million metric tones. That still made the Soviet Union the largest world producer with over 20 percent of world production. Since 1980, most developed nation steel output as dropped as production moved to India, South Korea, and especially China. Russia in 2018 produced 71 million metric tons, 6th highest in the world. If you include former Soviet republics, that number goes to about 100. So down since 1980 but the same could be said for the USA, the EU, and even Japan, the former rising star of steel. China now makes over half the worlds steel, 928 million metric tons in 2018. This is up from 14 million metric tons or 3 percent of world production at the time of this stamp.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Nikita Khrushchev. No the steel goal wasn’t met but at least he was trying to do great things and get the system working. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

Depending on how you count it, the Izmailovo Hotel complex was the biggest hotel in the world when it opened in 1979. It opened in time for the 1980 Olympics, a fact that many cities who host the games will be impressed by. 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 scale of late Soviet architecture really was quite impressive. The style of architecture is sometimes called brutalist. It is easy to see why with the simple, unadorned, but massive structures. That does not mean they are not impressive. The list of countries that could complete such a project without outside help being so much shorter the list of countries that could not. I once stayed at the Great Wall Sheraton in Beijing from the same era, and it was constructed and even managed by people brought in from outside. This hotel even had air conditioning. air filtration and computerized control systems all done by Soviets. Quite an achievement. In the 1990s and 2000s there was a rush to tear down some of the most famous brutalist structures. I am glad the Izmailovo Hotel avoided that fate. It was an important period when the Soviets were a superpower. There need to be a few reminders architecturally of the period even if the politics have changed. Berlin is quick to be rid of Third Reich and DDR buildings. I think that is short sighted historically.

Todays stamp is issue A2493, a 20 Kopeck stamp issued by the Soviet Union on December 15th, 1983. It was part of a 5 stamp issue in various denominations, that showed off new buildings of Moscow. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.

With the upcoming Olympics due in Moscow, it was decided that there must be new hotels constructed. This happens in most cities after they are awarded the right to host a future Olympics. What I have often wondered about is what the cities plan for the new hotels after the Olympics are over. To be fair, Moscow was the capital city of a superpower with representatives of client states and representatives of far off areas of the Soviet Union visiting for instruction or conferences. Most of these guests are probably not paying though, whatever that maters to a state run organization. It is natural for a citizen to want to visit their countries capital to experience the high culture and drink in the history. The histories of the hotel I have read  make no mention of who stayed 1980-1991, but I hope it was possible for an average Soviet citizen to stay there.

The Izmailovo Hotel opened in 1979 and was the biggest hotel in the world if you count by the number of guests that could be accommodated. It surpassed another Moscow hotel the Rossiya Hotel built in 1967. The Rossiya was torn down in 2006 in the hope that the prime location could have something more in keeping with the surrounding older architecture. Instead a clownish Disneyish pastiche of Moscow’s past was built, taking 11 years to construct. Welcome to the modern world. The Izmailovo was itself surpassed by the MGM Grand Hotel in Los Vegas in 1993. The First World Hotel in Malaysia is the current largest. The Izmailovo is still open and currently number 6 in the world but still biggest in Europe.

Well my drink is empty and you can guess where I will be staying if I am ever lucky enough to visit Moscow. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Things were unstable and had recently been violent. What was needed was that the people believe that things will get better. 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.

Stamps are a slightly idealized version of how a country sees itself. That is why I love them. This stamp could only be Russian. The hunting trophy looks fierce and noble, and the shirtless man, strong brave and going places. Not many places would portray things this way. Former American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently remarked about when similar shirtless pictures of Russian President Putin with a tiger, that it was a sign that the Russian President was insane. She always marketed herself as a Soviet expert, but Dr. Rice’s expertise apparently did not extend far enough to realize that this was a known Russian pose. As with most people, perhaps she would benefit from taking up stamp collecting.

The stamp today is issue A44, a 40 Ruble stamp issued by the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic on August 10th, 1921. It was a single stamp issue claiming the new Russia triumphant. The next year Russia was subsumed into the USSR. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.90 mint. A used version of the same stamp is worth $160. As can be seen from the already high denomination on the stamp, the Soviets had not yet gotten a handle on inflation. There are overstamped versions of this stamp from the same year with a 5000 Ruble denomination. They are worth much less used.

The Soviets took over from the Kerensky regime in October 1917. At the time it was hoped that the Communist Revolution would quickly engulf the world. For a time the Soviet regime in Russia had no official name and little foreign recognition. Opponents of the regime proposed Sovdepedia, mocking the many workers deputies. Instead the ruling Council of Peoples Commissars came up with the clunky above title.

The Council had a Civil War with Czarist White forces, land reform and many wars with neighbors to deal with. The whole class system of Russia was being upended with assets taken from the previous landowning classes. This quickly resulted in food shortages as few were tending the crops. The peasant class was then divided into the poor and the less poor and the less poor Kulaks were  targeted for hording food. The Council of Peoples Commissars contained Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, and even a female, Alexandra Kollonta. With so many goals, and little time to show results, it is not surprising that many of the Commissars were short lived. Lenin and a few others died of natural causes, but most were executed during Stalin’s purges. Alexandra Kollonta was an exception, she was allowed to go abroad and serve in Scandinavia as a diplomat. She foresaw marriage being replaced in Russia with free love and children raising to be heavily involved with the state. This never quite happened and she held her tongue during the time of the purges, that had taken her ex husband and several ex lovers. Her ideas were pioneering among later feminists.

In 1922, the Soviet Union came together in 1922 under a government modeled on the Russian Soviet Federated Peoples Republic. In 1946, Council of Ministers was refashioned as the Council of Deputies.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast our hero on todays stamp. He can see a bright future, if he could only figure out for us on how to get there. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.