Masha and the Bear - Russian oral folk story

Masha and the Bear is a Russian animated television series created by Oleg Kuzovkov.  The series is loosely based on the oral children's folk story of the same name. The show focuses on the adventures of a little girl named Masha and a fatherly bear that always keeps her from disasters - wiki

Cute covers from Russia!

D.I. Kozlov Russian aerospace engineer w/ World Space Week

1950 Moscow Skyscrapers Set

I receive emails from various stamp newsletters and this article is really interesting.  As you know, Russian stamps in the Soviet Union era are very unique, and I think they are quite beautiful.  Enjoy.

 
This iconic series of stamps was issued to commemorate the construction of a series of post-war skyscrapers in a brave new Moscow. Built to rival those in the US they were designed in the distinctive Russian Baroque style and known in Russia as Stalins Skyscrapers and in English to the western world as as the “Seven Sisters”.

In fact the stamp designs feature 8 buildings whereas only seven were planned and of those only six were constructed. They continue to dominate the Moscow skyline and comprise the Smolenskaya Square Building (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Krasnye Vorota (Red Gates Building), Moscow State University (until 1990 the tallest building in Europe), Hotel Ukraine (now the Radisson Royal), Hotel Leningrad (now the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya) and the Kotelnicheskaya Apartment Building. Also constructed was the Kudrinskaya Building which was not featured on the stamps whilst the featured Vosstaniya Square and Zaryadye Buildings were not constructed.

Much of the driving force for these buildings came from Stalin himself, determined that a victorious post war Russia should not be seen as backward and his hand was evident at every stage of the process, from chosing the architects to chosing which parts of the city should be levelled to make way for them. Most of the detailed planning decisions were made in secret but his masterplan was for a massive 10 lane highway to encircle the city with these monuments to a modern, winning Russia sited to give an impressive cityscape. Much of this was implemented but falling short of the original grand design.


credit to Sandafayr.com

A flowery cover from Russia

【作者: msyanwu】【2007年04月16日 星期一 10:31】

俄國花朵實寄封欣賞

Russian cover with flowers

集邮其中一个最大的乐趣就是能通过四通八达的邮政系统和世界各国的集邮爱好者交流。 最近新认识的一位俄国朋友寄来了这样一个实寄封。 对俄国的历史，人民风俗实在不太了解。 只是在历史学堂里稍微认识了一下皮特一世， 凯莎琳大帝， 列宁， 斯大林， 以及电影上的战争与和平， 施瓦够医生。 实在是贫乏。 觉得， 俄国人的信封总是色彩缤纷的， 邮戳蛮好的， 字很奇怪。 前苏联跟中国是盟友， 虽然后来闹了矛盾， 不过在中国还是有遗留下来的影响力， 好多官员都要学学俄语， 不知道现在的中国， 俄语是否还是有市场？

One of the advantages of collecting stamps is to be able to interact with collectors around the world.  Here is a cover from a Russian collector.  I really don't know much about Russia, except Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Lenin and Stalin from my history class.  Other than this, I've watched War and Peace and Doctor Zhivago on film.  This is so meager isn't it.  :( 

washington 2006 -Russia

Last year, I had the good fortune to attend a world class stamp exhibition in Washington DC. It was the first world stamp exhibition that I have ever attended at that kind of scale. The place was huge, definitely size of a football field. There were so much to see, so much to do and so little time even though I stayed there for a week. I am sure there will be more to come and that I will attend even more stamp shows in the future, but the first is always more memorable than the rest.

One of my main activities during the show was to visit all the different foreign postal administrations. I think more than 50 countries came, more or less, which was great. You know, the chance of seeing new issues from 50 countries at the same time and at face value is rare. Most of the world class stamp exhibitions only take place once every 10 years for the host country.

I stopped by the Russian postal booth because I have always liked stamps from Russia. Maybe it's because of the funny looking Russian alphabets? or whatever it is .. :) but I think Russian stamps are pretty. I asked the lady behind the booth if she can sell me stamps worth the rate of sending a letter from Russia to the USA, but the lady didn't speak English. After about 10 minutes of sign language and body gestures, I finally bought a set of stamps issued in 2001, beautiful paintings of the city of St. Petersburg. I knew it was about St. Petersburg because the lady kept saying St. Petersburg, haha... I bought the whole set thinking the postage will be enough to mail a letter from Russia to the USA but I was wrong!

A while later when I affixed all the stamps on an envelope and handing it to the lady, at the same time, another lady appeared and she spoke English and she asked me if I needed help, so I handed the letter to her instead. She looked at it and asked if I wanted to have the letter mailed from Russia and I said yes. She was like, oh no, the postage is not enough, and she took a 100 p definitive stamp and put it on the envelope. I asked her how much and she was like, it's ok, no need. I was thrilled. About a month later, I received my envelope back. It was very nice, first self-made letter from Russia. Although, to this day I still have no idea why she put a 100p stamp on the envelope, the 100 seemed very high!