These Red postcards from China

     I think everyone in postcrossing received one of these Chinese postcards at least once - they are not weird per se, but it feels there is some cultural background behind which average Westerner doesn't get. Red is special colour for Chinese culture and especially for around New Year Celebrations [Moscow center this February was amazingly red with Chinese lanterns and decorations] - maybe Lulu provides more context in comments. The cards remind a bit of red envelopes, traditional envelopes for money gifts for holidays, but they are not it exactly. I got reminded of this post draft after receiving similar card from lovelylulu just couple months ago for this New Year. Other postcards in this post are quite different style but it feels they are all connected in some way - publishing purposes at least, and couple have same detachable element on the side.

front (left) and back (right) of postcard, received from lovelylulu, China [I hope it's ok to leave some explanation text from message on the back]

front (left) and back (right) of CN-2440219, from pandali, China

     The next postcard is connected to symbols of the year - it's paper-cut 'The Horse Carries the Treasures', Ansai, Shan'xi from The Twelve Symbolic Animals - the seventh of the twelve Earthly Branches, The Horse. I didn't know before - but seems quite a lot of artsy postcards are part of that traditional Chinese paper cutting art technique and it explains the style of next three postcards.

received from skull-yuki, China (Room tag)

     Most often I received similar postcards through official site, probably all issued by China Post: left one congratulates with New Year 2013 - Year of Snake, center one had similar number on the back, like CN-2440219 above [could it be like used New Year China Post lottery ticket which after using can be sent as postcard for free?].

left - envelope of CN-791824, from doctorcheers, China; center - CN-944278, from yuanXamoy, China; right - another one of CN-791824, from doctorcheers, China

Erotic postcards, part #26: Weird paintings

     As you probably noticed from previous posts marked with #erotic - it lies for me very close to both #weird postcard and #art through postcrossing, since I don't state it clearly in the wish, I often get erotic cards as subcategory of these. Both were received via singular swaps in livejournal postcrossing community [there is still some life in it - mostly thanks to Lera, mondschein, who write sort of blog 'travel with cards' there, referencing various interesting places with illustration of cards from official site]. Left one is 'Ready-made', 2002, by Leonid Sokov, pencil and acrylic on paper, from 'Essence of Life/Art' exhibition. Interesting that kry_katrin writes that she works in Tretyakov gallery for 12 years already [in 2014] and her whole life is connected with art but even then she didn't find it in her to love the modern art xD Googled some of Leonid Sokov works - seems he's heavily into post-modern fantasies about Soviet times, so erotic is not his main genre. Right one is from Saint Petersburg Art Rostra gallery - 'Red couch', 2010, by Nikolay Reznichenko, oil, canvas.

left - received from kry_katrin, Russia (direct swap); right - received from nastasiaalien, Russia (direct swap)

Batch of space posters, old and new [kviltlibreto, Russia]

     Interesting that besides the classical cards [1, 2, and 3] Museum of Cosmonautics was issuing the more modern ones. Like these ones by Lesya Martishina - 2017's  series 'It's hard to be a cosmonaut' [Roscosmos also was issuing interesting sets - like space pin-up by Andrey Tarusov or set of illustration by Vasiliy Lozhkin - both I have received written and write about them one day]. The left one says: 'Gagarin wasn't nervous. And you should not!'. The middle one says 'Rules of life on ISS - Don't forget to strap in before sleep - Cosmonauts are sleeping in special sleeping bags which are strapped to the walls of narrow spaces, so they don't fly during sleep accidentally' The right one says: 'Don't cry over little things. Did you know that if you cry in space your tears form a big blob and don't disappear till you wipe them off with a towel? It's hard even to cry in space'.

all received from kviltlibreto, Russia (direct swap)

     Next card seems similar to 'How to become a cosmonaut' card, a little bit of infographics, kviltlibreto mentions the series 'For All Mankind' [haven't watched but was going to] - with an alternate reality where space race never ended because USSR beat USA to Moon landing. The card shows all significant steps of space race - as it's known USSR beat USA to every step but the Moon landing [from top to bottom]: first artificial Earth satellite, first creature in space [Laika], first man in space, first woman in space, first spacewalk. I think it'd be more fair to put USA win also on the card, but it is what it is [also 'interesting' spacecraft references on the top]. Next one shows all significant chief engineers of the space race [from top to bottom, the scan is a bit crooked, it was scanner's fault - and maybe a bit of kids smashing the top during scanning, they like to help - that's said, all kviltlibreto's cards have decorations from her kids on the back ^^]: rocket engineer and spacecraft designer who led the development of the Soviet space program during the early years of the Space Race, Sergei Korolev; main designer of rocket engines in the Soviet program Valentin Glushko; designer of the first Soviet rocket launch complexes Vladimir Barmin; radio engineer and designer of radio communication systems for spacecrafts Mikhail Ryazanskiy; chief designer of rocket guidance systems, designer of control systems for boosters and spacecraft Nikolay Pilyugin; applied mechanics and automated control systems scientist Viktor Kuznetsov.

both received from kviltlibreto, Russia (direct swap)

     And couple of space posters published by Museum of Cosmonautics to finish it off! The husband of kviltlibreto was working as space popular science communicator, so she had a lot of space-related postcards from his lectures and travel. Left one is 'We are going in the lead of scientific and technical progress and we are keen to show the path to the future' by A. Antonchenko, 18.X.1959. Right one is Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's quote 'After the era of propeller-driven airplanes should follow the era of jet-propelled airplanes or stratosphere airplanes' and poster by I. Grinstein, 18.VII.1957.

both received from kviltlibreto, Russia (direct swap)

Perks of instant memory: More of Cyberpunk 2077

     I just mentioned the other postcards from collector's edition of the game, and here it is, the Pacifica one, from dear Ben, bendoodle! This time with wonderful cyborg drawing on the back and beautifully arranged Bruce Lee stamps ^^ Interesting what I noticed with postal deliveries lately - often postcards sent on the same date [both May 18th written and May 19th, 2026 stamped - arrived on June 9th and June 16th, 2026] are arriving one by one with 2-3 days in between - which is nicer when each card is a treasure, because outstanding cards are appreciated more when come alone [in contrary to average cards, which are more influenced by cheerleader effect].

frontside (left) and backside (right) of postcard, received from bendoodle, USA (direct swap)

Maxicard: Electronic mail

     Inspired by easiness to find the source data for the figurine on the Japanese postcard, I decided to give google image search AI chance to write a post for me - for the Australian maxicard from the period I didn't scan the backsides, the regular search for the stamp didn't bring any results. What AI says in short overview, mostly being Captain Obvious and describing the picture showing text recognition on image works pretty well: 'This is a 1985 Australian "First Day of Issue" postcard featuring a 33-cent "Electronic Mail" stamp. The design depicts a stylized visualization of data transmission or signal frequencies. It was postmarked in Melbourne, Victoria, on September 18, 1985.' Then AI gives some visual matches, none of which match exact picture though, so I assume it didn't exist easily accessable online before I dragged and dropped it into search [I picked ones with wikipedia articles]: A Spectrum of Infinite Scale; Electric Universe (album); On Time Out of Time (album). Interesting that when clicking more AI starts to unfold the description: 'Your 1985 Australian "Electronic Mail" First Day of Issue postcard is a fascinating collectible that marks the dawn of digital communication. This specific stamp was issued to publicize Australia Post's evolving electronic message services and perfectly captures the mid-80s aesthetic of early telecommunications' [using links of FDC and stamp sold on online platforms]. 

received from JoKo61, Australia (Just Postcards RR#383)

     Then more Key Details & Trivia: 'The Design: The futuristic red, blue, and green linear shapes in the stamp's design are a stylized visualization of data signals. They were actually created using lasers. The Artist: The vibrant design was illustrated by the renowned designer and artist J. S. (Stan) Ostoja-Katkowski. Historical Context: In 1985, electronic mail primarily referred to Australia Post's early digital/fax-hybrid services (like Epost), which predated modern widespread consumer email.' And finally giving the answer to real value of that card xD: 'While these nostalgic philatelic items represent a cool piece of tech history, they are very common in the collectors' market. Generally, a standard unaddressed or privately serviced First Day Cover featuring this stamp is typically valued between $2 and $5, with Mint versions of the loose stamp valued around $1'. So AI helper works as fast search engine, which strips the links it found and packages the info from all sources in coherent sentences, one still need to verify the info it gave ideally and sadly the process of finding information which usually involve reading some more random info on the way is completely removed. I'll keep using it for the cards I didn't find the info myself [on other hand I have a feeling that to favour the AI search, functions of regular search were severely downgraded - the regular search doesn't find even the links laying on the surface, maybe it was done to encourage the trust into AI search usage].

Archaeological museum postcard [Japan]

      Somehow my drafts now not updating the order if I add any changes to contents so it's harder to pick up writing something I've just edited recently. And most of the posts I click have too many postcards and I'm too lazy to write long posts or divide them in parts [so cherry-picking the singular-card drafts is harder too]. So here is Japanese card from Sapporo, Hokkaido, showing a figurine from the Museum, Archaeological Institute of Kashihara, Nara Prefecture [www.kashikoken.jp]. I suppose it's from permanent exhibition showing archaeology of Yamato, sadly sender didn't write any details [the box of figurine seems to have had some function for sure so it'd be interesting to learn], telling instead there was 70th Sapporo Snow Festival in 2019 and many big snow sculptures were displayed.

front side (left) and back side (right) of JP-1207540, from <account_closed>, Japan

     Luckily image search is all AI-powered now and it was easily found: 'This is a Haniwa model of a seated figure from Japan's Kofun period, specifically dating to the 6th century AD' [probably it helps that someone posted that item on reddit, since AI is using 40+% of reddit and 26+% of wikipedia for learning]. Haniwa are special figurines made from terracotta clay and buried with the dead as funerary objects: 'The terracotta figure is seated on a throne or chair-like structure, and is often interpreted as representing a person of high social standing, such as a shaman or priestess; It was excavated from the Iwami Site in Nara Prefecture and is currently housed in the Nara Prefectural Archaeological Institute of Kashihara' [the figure is serving as a mascot of the mentioned museum].

Rare countries: Egypt

     One of the rare countries postcards from which are rather disappointing - reminding of German photoshopped multiview collages postcards. I love Ancient Egypt and mummies, so I'd expect cards like - EG-3553, EG-3572, and EG-4179, or some frescos or items from Cairo Museum [to be fair - last year mondschein found some vintage postcards from Egypt in one of flea markets, and they were all that, beautiful]. The backside of left and center cards says 'Nile print' and left one has typical colour misalignment of cheap printing, the center one which actually send and travelled from Egypt is printed better. Polish card was sent from Poland, and the backside says 'Dive the Red Sea' print

left - received from demnat, Russia, postcard bought on vacation in Egypt (direct swap); center - received from zabava_zanoza, while on vacation in Egypt (direct swap); right - PL-977395, from <account closed>, Poland, postcard bought on vacation in Egypt

     Egyptian stamp features pharaoh Akhenaten with his very recognizable horse face, and pharaoh Tutankhamun face mask at pre-printed place. Interesting that Polish postcard was underpaid with priority tariff, which was supposed to be 5.15 zloty instead of 5 [handwritten, and Germans have a 'T' stamp for such cases, as seen here and on many other cards].

top left - backside of a postcard, received from zabava_zanoza, while on vacation in Egypt (direct swap); top right - backside of a postcard, received from azuregosa, Russia (direct swap); bottom - stamps of PL-977395, from <account closed>, Poland, postcard bought on vacation in Egypt

     Next three postcards would be something I'd love to receive from Egypt but received from other sources instead - wonderful card made from unusual material from azuregosa, not a real papyrus of course, but palm leaf fake for tourists, but amazing for my unusual and trash collections, the card shows 'Tutankhamun [living image of Aten] receives flowers from his Queen, Ankhesenamun [she lives for the Aten]', image on the lid of a container found in Tut's tomb, 1323 BCE. Second card shows kneeling mudstone figure of Ramesses IV from British Museum. The third one is bought in Egypt and has the same publisher as Polish card and shows - 'Andhamahor performiny Circumcision' [I kept original spelling xD seems it's a painting over bas-relief from Tomb of Ankhmahor, Saqqara necropolis, Old Kingdom, 6th Dynasty, reign of king Teti, ca. 2345-2333 BC], received in 2020 - Lera wrote that she missed Egypt but not in a way 'I want sea, sun, and sand' like 'normal' people, but in a postcrossing way - 'I'd put my profile in travel mode, buy so many cards and so many stamps...'.

left - received from azuregosa, Russia (direct swap); center - received from SueLing, Taiwan (10x10RR#67); right - received from mondschein, Russia, postcard bought on vacation in Egypt (direct swap)

Last ones from the space Soviet poster set

     And the last two! Left one is 'Long live to the first astronaut Yu. A. Gagarin!' by V. Viktorov, 1961, and right one 'Long live the son of the Communist Party!' by B. Berezovskiy, 1961. Interesting detail about helmets on both postcards: left one has Gagarin not in space helmet but in fighter pilot helmet [here I found a link in Russian with photos of such Soviet helmets], it almost looks like artist didn't have a photo of actual helmet yet and improvised; right one used photo of Gagarin before the flight, probably in training suit, - the 'USSR' text by legend was last minute addition, the original helmet was just white, that's why letters on the poster are a bit crooked.

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     Third poster is not from the set, but it resembles one of them a lot - '12 April 1961 Day of Cosmonautics. Long live to Yuri Gagarin - first cosmonaut in the world!' - also like on many previous posters it is meant to be Yuri on the poster, but face is intentionally made more generic, like averaging face of all cosmonauts from first group of cosmonauts of Soviet Union. On mondschein's card, received in July 2019, it's mentioned that Russian language subpart of official postcrossing forum became very dull for swaps [it was about a year before launch of the new official community, which was/is huge intensive amazing part of my life, especially in 2020 -- 2024 and Russian subpart was/is quite nice too], so she mostly doing swap on vk [Russian social network similar to facebook], there she recommended 'Write my cards back' RR in spicy_autumn_post community, and I did one round there for sure, it was fine. She mentioned that she bought so many cards for herself and for official postcrossing, it'll be enough for centuries [firna and me are helping her with writing back cards now and she writes ours xD].

left - received from marchwitch, Russia (direct swap); right - backside of one of received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

Completing the space Soviet poster set [vertical]

     The set was issued in 2011, and still in 2015 -- 2016 it was rather easy to organize the swap for almost all posters, many keen postcrossers are prone to buying way more than it's possible to send so many had the set with only couple cards missing, especially considering the Soviet posters plus space are quite popular in wishlists on official site. Myself I sent out two full sets and still have third one with 8 postcards left, obviously without the Gagarin cards - they are often in favourites because they are sent first, then being favourited and sent based on that and so on [that particularity is typical for most popular series or sets, first collected and first gone are the prettiest ones, and if you've missed the 'beginning' of the postcard rush those are hardest to get, so zero judgement for collectors organizing swaps the moment certain postcard sets are out]. So the posters are: 1 - 'The 10th planet is a symbol of communist victory!' by V. Ivanov, 1959; 2 - 'Long live Soviet science! Long live the Soviet man - the first astronaut!' by V. Volikov, 1961; 3 - 'Long live courage, labor and intellect of the Soviet people!' by V. Viktorov, 1962. On 10th planet postcard I always write a story of that launch - engineers miscalculate something and instead of moon research flight Luna-1 became first artificial satellite to the Sun. Not that it was needed or important achievement but anything goes in the space race [also quite an example of sort of 'positive' propaganda and how it's supposed to be - lifting up Soviet people's spirit], and Luna-2 was first to touch the moon surface.

1.                                 2.                                 3.

left - received from osminozhka, Russia (direct swap); center - received from miomy, Russia (direct swap); right - received from alexrat, Russia (direct swap)

     Then: 4 - 'The distance to even the furthest planet is not that long, folks!' by A. Vinokurov, 1963 [sender writes that funny but during our life indeed the furthest planet became closer but neither because of the scientists' or engineers' efforts, referring to International Astronomical Union decision about Pluto in 2006]; 5 - 'Socialism is our launching pad' by V. Viktorov, 1962; 6 - 'Sputnik of friendship and co-operation' by V. Viktorov, 1970. To comment on the last one - one of Soviet space stamps series in my collection are dedicated to joint and international space flights [Syria, India, France, Japan, Austria, Cuba, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia etc.], and it's sad to see how scheduled remnants of that series are still there in 1992 [Russia-Germany. Joint space flight] and trying to give a hand symbolically and not getting help in the agony of the 1990s.

4.                                 5.                                 6.
left and center - received from alexrat, Russia (direct swap); right - received from miomy, Russia (Happy Birthday LJ RR)

     And the last are: 7 - 'We are born to make dreams come true!' by V. Viktorov, 1960; 8 - 'For the glory of communism!' by E. Soloviev, 1961; 9 - 'A Soviet citizen be proud - the way to distant stars is discovered!' by M. Soloviev, 1962. On last postcard lhanya writes that her grandfather was military pilot and knew many of the cosmonauts personally, because for vacations and recovery they used same sanatoriums, and even run together to the beach to get some beers with some, she regrets of not asking for more details when she was a kid.

7.                                 8.                                 9.
left and center - received from laurelea_ray, Russia  (direct swap); right - received from lhanya, Russia (direct swap)

Completing the space Soviet poster set [horizontal]

     There are 22 postcards in the set, I showed six of them in previous posts [first one, the one with a riddle, and one more]. I organized a big swap a while ago in 2015--2016 to collect all 22, but still appeared two postcards short [the best ones - with Gagarin - because he's most recognizable for foreigners hence posters with him are sent first], but in summer 2019 Lera, mondschein, helped me to complete the collection. So first all remaining horizontal ones: top left - 'Our triumph in space is the hymn to the Soviet Country!' by V. Viktorov, 1963; top right - 'The dreams came true on 12 April' by B. Staris, 1961; bottom left - 'The way is open for a human being!' by K. Ivanov, 1960 [it's said that Yuri Gagarin was joking sometimes that he's confused whether he is the first human in space or the last dog - also it was a reference to amount of automatization Soviet spacecrafts had]; bottom right - 'In the name of peace and progress!' by V. Ivanov, 1965. Interesting that all postcards received from laurelea_ray contained the five-postcard story, but I guess I reveal it when I get to all other postcards in that batch.

both received from laurelea_ray, Russia (direct swap)

left - RU-3846520, from pechenuga, Russia; right - received from alexrat, Russia (direct swap)

     The last horizontal one is dedicated to Valentina Tereshkova - 'Long live the first woman astronaut!' by Yu. Kershin, 1963. Surprisingly, that female cosmonaut poster was popular enough to make it with Czech translation to postcards sold in UK Science Museum [and then it was sent from Germany, funny that sender also writes about his small town Hoyerswerda near Berlin being bilingual because of many Sorbs living there], text on the backside says: 'Colour poster issued by the Soviet State Publishing House of Decorative/Fine Arts in Moscow to celebrate the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova. Tereshkova was a solo crew member on Vostok 6 flight which launched from the Tyuratam Space Station on 16 June 1963 and remained in orbit for three days'. Interesting that text mentions Töretam even though Baikonur was used as official spaceport name since 1950s, and that poster while being obviously Czechoslovakian is 'issued in Moscow' [I guess all Slavs are same for British museum publisher, eh?], also the flight was 1+ hour short of three days. On one of Lera postcards there was a 2003 stamp dedicated to 40th anniversary of Tereshkova flight [on rusmarka] from the same series by A. Kernosov as 2001 issues for 40th anniversaries of Gagarin's and Titov's flights [interesting that same artist is responsible for 6th definitive stamp issue - the Russian Kremlins, which replaced animal issues and was in use from 2009 till current issue in 2019 which is inspired by Imperial stamps]. On miomy's card there was also a matching stamp with Tereshkova, but of 2013 issue, I showed my maxicards with it before.

left - received from miomy, Russia (direct swap) and then from mondschein, Russia (direct swap); center - DE-8623781, from post-andy, Germany; right - stamps of postcard, received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)