Since I know nobody almost nobody in Russia, and that country is not a common destination among my friends, these Russian postcards have been sent through the Postcrossing site.
This one belongs to a series that some postcrossers collect: Greetings from... by Postallove. I have got some of them, too. However, on the back, something caught my attention. It reads: Greetings from Russia (unofficial). Photo by Franco [illegible]. And the web of a company: www.poststation.ru
I checked and... Yes: there are some differences with what must be the official postcard. Apart from the most obvious (the picture, the design of the bear and the matryoshka doll, the number of postcrossers...) there are more subtile differences (the map, the extension of the country, the Famous Russians section...).
All the matter seems curious to me.
I checked and... Yes: there are some differences with what must be the official postcard. Apart from the most obvious (the picture, the design of the bear and the matryoshka doll, the number of postcrossers...) there are more subtile differences (the map, the extension of the country, the Famous Russians section...).
All the matter seems curious to me.
Yekaterininsky Canal near the St Nicholas Cathedral in St. Petersburg, 1900s.
How nice to see how we can distinguish official and not-official GF cards! Recently I learned there are some un-official GF cards from Dutch cities, which look sufficient GF for me, too :-)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, you know a Russian mail artist and his daughter and son. At least you've sent a window to him :-)
You're right. Eduard and his daughter write to me three or four times a year. They have contributed to all my postal projects! But, as that is mostly mail art, I wasn't thinking of them when I wrote the post...
DeleteI think all this matter of "official" and "unofficial" is a bit weird. And, mostly, I don't think it is right to copy somebody's idea to sell your own postcards.
I agree with both: I wouldn't think of mail artists either, when thinking of postcards. It is just that I immediately thought of the cute drawing by Eduard's daughter (and I received one cute drawing by his son, did you?)
DeleteAnd official-unofficial matter, it is weird, and indeed it is not correct to not respect the copyright. And I'm amazed tgat it happens in several countries, I've seen GF-cities from Netherlands (which I, er, bought to send to you..) as well as Belarus and now Russia..
I guess it's difficult for authors, to see their work copied. But, sometimes, when you buy a postcard (or anything)... how could you know? Not always unofficial is written on the back!
DeleteThe official / unofficial differences may stem from different views about what constitutes Russia. I have Ukrainian friends who say Ukraine is not in Russia but I have seen some sites claim Ukraine is part of Russia!
ReplyDeleteThe same happened to me when I wanted to send maps from Morocco...
DeleteOfficial or unofficial, the card has a great look to it.
ReplyDeleteI find these postcards very entertaining, especially when they come from distant countries.
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