World Postcard Day 2025

More postcards I got, sent on World Postcard Day:

Sent by Bryon (the USA).

Sent by Heleen (the Netherlands).

Postcard sent by Anna (Russia).

And two special postmarks, from Portugal and the USA (Thanks, Pedro & Bryon!):

Sunday Stamps | M Is for Mukhina

Vera Mukhina (1889 – 1953) was a famous sculptor, the creator of the monument Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, the winner of the Grand Prix at the exhibition in Paris for a collection of women's clothing decorated with painted peas and, according to the legend, the designer of Russian faceted glass.

The stamps was sent by Eduard (Russia) on the back of this matching postcard:

Portrait by Mikhail Nesterov

My Sunday Stamps A-Z is dedicated to women on stamps. See here more M-stamps!

Outgoing Summer Mail: Citrus

Sent to Canada, France, Russia, the UK and the USA.

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Fly

No 46 "Night and Day"
Kristen Etmund

Ornament
A. Zakharchenko

Sent by Rosemary (Canada) and Eduard (Russia). 

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
August theme: ILLUSTRATIONS

• Week 1 - Maps
• Week 2 - Art
• Week 3 - Animals
• Week 4 - Food (or Plants)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Том Сойер Фест

The Tom Sawyer Fest is a summer festival of restoration of the historical heritage by volunteers and sponsors. They focus their efforts particularly on the wooden houses in the city center. Most of the festival's objects are buildings represent no value in the eyes of local authorities, as they are not listed as historical or architectural monuments.

The festival was born in Samara in 2015, and its name honours the character in Mark Twain's novels, who was punished by painting a wooden fence.

Before

The postcard has a clever design: you have to paint the house! It features "Svirelin's House" (Moskovskaya St,. 28, in Pereslavl-Zalessky) named after priest Alexander Ivanovich Svirelin, caretaker of the Pereslavl Theological School, writer, local historian and historian. It has been transformed thanks to 250 adult volunteers (and a lot of children!) during twenty days.

After

See more pictures here or in the official website.

(The mail adventure here is that, believe it or not, the postcard arrived when I was re-reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer...!)

Thursday Postcard Hunt | My Happy Place Is Next to a Lighthouse!

Mevagissey
CORNWALL

1. List-Ost - 2. List-West - 3. Quermarkenfeuer Rotes Klift - 
4. Kampen - 5. Hörnum
GERMANY

Texel
NETHERLANDS

Aveiro
PORTUGAL

Barsagin Cape, Vladivostok
RUSSIA

Passing Lismore Lighthouse enroute for the island of Mull
SCOTLAND

The Cuckold's Light, Boothbay Harbor, Maine
USA

Postcards sent by Ania (UK), Birgit (Germany), Heleen (Netherlands), Pedro (Portugal), Vika (Russia) and Amber (USA).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
July theme: TRAVEL

• Week 1 - Your Own Country
• Week 2 - A place you'd like to visit (but haven't)
• Week 3 - A place you would not like to visit (for whatever reason)
• Week 4 - Getting around (train, bus, plane, stations, airports)
• Week 5 - Your happy place (beach, mountains, parks, cities, islands...)

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Aniva Lighthouse

The Aniva Lighthouse is an  abandoned lighthouse located on Cape Aniva in the very south of Sakhalin Island in the East of Russia. The height of the building is 31 meters, the height of the light is 40 meters above sea level. It was built by Japan in 1938-1940, and abandoned in 2006 after an eventful life. Since then, it is gradually destroyed by water and wind, and has become a tourist attraction.

The first postcard was sent by Veniamin (Russia) after a visit to the lighthouse. The postcard below was sent by Eduard two years ago.

See more pictures and information here.

Summer Mail - I

 

Postcard sent by Eduard (Russia). This is a charity card. The author of the drawing is Елизавета Левина (10 years old).

Red Book

The Tkachev brothers were a Soviet and Russian tandem of painters and graphic artists, consisting of two brothers: Sergei Petrovich and Alexey Petrovich. Alexey Tkachev died on April 3, 2025, at the age of 99. His brother Sergei Tkachev died in 2022, having lived to be 100 years old.

Boy with a red book (1957-1960)
Алексе́й Петро́вич Ткачёв

Between Battles (1957-1960)
Алексе́й Петро́вич Ткачёв

Eduard (Russia) sent me the first postcard two years ago, and the second recently. At first sight, I thought it was the same boy reading the same red book.

Enigmatic Postcards

I have got this postcards through the Postcrossing site, from China and Russia. No clues on the back. I have used online tools to read them... but certain degree of mystery remains!

Sunday Stamps | Scottish Heraldry

Today's Sunday Stamps topic is Shields, Crests, Heraldry. The following stamps were issued in 1987. They belong to a 4-stamps set commemorating the 300th Anniversary of Revival of Order of the Thistle.

Arms of the Lord Lyon King of Arms

Arms of Royal Scottish Academy of
Painting, Sculpture and Architecture

Nothing to do with Scotland (as far as I know). But, when I was writing this post, I got the following stamp, issued in 2018, to commemorate the centenary of Russian Diplomatic Courier Service.

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Doctors

Nadezhda Prokofyevna Suslova (Надежда Прокофьевна Суслова, 1843 – 1918) was Russia's first woman medical doctor. She arrived in Russia in 1854, and a year later received a diploma of Doctor in Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics.

"Not only was [Jane Wright's work scientific,
but it was visionary for the whole science of oncology."
Dr. Sandra Swain, The New York Times

Jane Cooke Wright (1919 – 2013) was a pioneering cancer researcher and surgeon, whose new chemo techniques saved millions of lives.

This postcard was matched with the most appropriate stamps:

Sent by Eduard (Russia) and Phillip (the USA).

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
March theme: WOMAN

• Week 1 - Working
• Week 2 - Relaxing
• Week 3 - Reading, Handwork
• Week 4 - Famous Women

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Kirghiz Girl

The Daughter of Soviet Kirghizia, by S. Chuykov. Postcard sent by Eduard (Russia), with a vintage matching stamp.

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
March theme: WOMAN

• Week 1 - Working
• Week 2 - Relaxing
• Week 3 - Reading, Handwork
• Week 4 - Famous Women

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Snail Map

This illustration by Olga Kuleshova was sent by Eduard (Russia). But it is a sort of map, or travel diary, featuring some places in Spain. I can recognise most of the landmarks, but some of the destinations surprised me; for instance, Guadalajara (the only one I have never been to!).

On the back, the sender added some vintage Spanish stamps, just for making it more interesting.

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
February theme: MAPS

• Week 1 - Country
• Week 2 - City or Metro/Transportation
• Week 3 - With Pictorial Landmarks
• Week 4 - States/Provinces/Counties

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

Thursday Postcard Hunt | Spasskaya Tower

Postcard sent by Alexander (Russia), showing the Spasskaya Tower or Saviour Tower on the eastern wall of the Moscow Kremlin which overlooks Red Square.

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Thursday Postcard Hunt
January theme: COLOURS

• Week 1 - Blue
• Week 2 - Green
• Week 3 - Orange
• Week 4 - Pink
• Week 5 - Red

Everyone is welcome to share their postcards!

С Новым Годом / Happy New Year

Sent by Eduard (Russia) and Phillip (the USA).

Ready for the Winter?

 

'A smurfy beginning is half the battle'

Sent by Melissa (the Netherlands).

'Happiness is when your soul
stops asking for it doesn't have
and starts enjoying the things it has'

Sent by Olga (Russia).

Sent by Phillip (the USA).

Sunday Stamps | Russian

For today's Sunday Stamps, dedicated to Foreign Languages, I have chosen the stamps that appear on the back of a postcard recently sent by Eduard (Russia).

Ivan Fyodorov or Fiodorov (1510 or c. 1525 – 1583), was one of the fathers of Eastern Slavonic printing. He was forced out of Moscow because of his attempts to employ the “blasphemous” new printing techniques, and found refuge in Poland–Lithuania, where he was instrumental in the publication of the Ostrog Bible, the first complete printed edition of the Bible in Church Slavonic.

Dmitry Likhachev (1906 – 1999) was a Russian medievalist, linguist, and a former inmate of Gulag. During his lifetime, he was considered the world's foremost scholar of the Old Russian language and its literature.

Sergey Mikhalkov (1913 – 2009) was a Soviet and Russian author of children's books and satirical fables. He wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems.

In case you are curious, the front of the postcard show the cover of Nikolai Leskov's story The Wig Maker, designed by Mstislav Dobuzhinsky.