Lions of Saint Petersburg

     The lion statues of Saint Petersburg are an interesting type of sight there, there is even a Soviet-Italian movie based on that - 'Unbelievable Adventures of Italians in Russia', 1974. Left one is from Pavlovsk, Saint Petersburg suburb with neoclassical Pavlovsk Palace, built for Emperor Paul I in the 1700s, lion lies at the entrance to the big palace and there are much more statues of lions in the park. The second lion statue is typical one, and similar are in many different locations [standing lion with a paw on the ball, but made by different sculptors], the one on the postcard is on Admiralty Embankment, more specifically the main Winter Palace pier [built by architect Carlo Rossi], sculptor I.P. Prokofiev, 1832 [there is a typo on postcard description - it says 1932, and it's not the first historical typo I see on postcards from this publisher], photo by V. Davydov and V. Denisov in 2012. 

left - received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap); center - RU-6535973, from Katikinz, Russia; right - received from ushina, Russia (direct swap)

     Last one is lion on the Bank Bridge, photo by A. Dymnikov, 2006, and the postcard seems to be a 10 years anniversary advertisement for real estate agency, lions are made by sculptor Pavel Sokolov [he also contributed to the Bridge of Four Lions and Egyptian Bridge]. I found some odd touristic site where there are descriptions of old famous lion statues and it says that students of Saint Petersburg [Saint Petersburg State University of Economics  is on one side of the bridge, formerly it was the building of Russian Assignation Bank, who paid for the bridge] believe that is 'five-year student female virgin passes over the bridge, the bridge gets destroyed' - could be true, but more feels like one of the things touristic guides tell during tours to entertain people.

Maxicard: Services

     Continuing the theme of boring postcards and stamps - three maxicards dedicated to different state services, while boringness of the stamps varies, the postcard is just map/flag and symbol of the service. Left one is The Main Centre for Special Communications [stamp on rusnarka, 2014]; center one is Accounts Chamber of Russia [stamp on rusmarka, 2015, odd that coat of arms is differet on postcard and on stamp]; right one is State Program of Development of Voluntary Donorship Blood Service [stamp on rusmarka, 2015, my friend and penpal, asbobr, thinks it's the most boring/ugly/creepy stamp of all times].

all received from silent-gluk, Russia (direct swap)

Diplomatic relationship: Algeria and Bulgaria

     In all types of boring stamps special place take the stamps dedicated to diplomatic relationship anniversaries when it seems both countries haven't really invest anything in making it pretty as joint-issue stamp [like Russia and China did in their 75 years anniversary with panda Katyusha stamp]. Seems there is sort of list of events which stamps need to be issued for and diplomatic relationship is on that list, making boring maxicards as well [not only in Russia such stamps are boring, in Germany as well: 1 and 2].

both received from silent-gluk, Russia (direct swap)

Horoscope and constellations postcards

     Not that I believe in horoscopes, but can't deny that in early teens, partly because it was in the 90s and very popular here, I knew what signs I am in all available horoscopes -- all girls were into it, when you calculate which sign you are and the boy you like and whether you are compatible. Interesting that in young adult years the Russian version of  Myers-Briggs, socionics by Aušra Augustinavičiūtė, both based on Carl Yung's works and later also incorporating Information metabolism theory by Antoni Kępiński, was very popular here - people just like categorizing others and themselves! And in a sense if you don't dive too deep into pseudoscience aspects it helped rational introverts to function better when realizing that every person is different in perceiving and processing information and in the comfortable ways of interacting with environment, and it was less random than horoscopes! xD So I am an Aquarius [even when taking into account the 2000-years star shift, while signs shifted to adjacent ones for most people] and Fire Tiger, ENTJ and Jack London.

left - received from Natasha, Russia, originally Estonian postcard (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017); right - received from klemens_ku, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017)

     Natasha wrote she is 'paper soul' and works as conservator-restorer for graphics and can't pass by any old nice looking paper - like this postcard she bought long ago in Tallinn, Estonia, - Estonian printed by 'Kunst' publishing house in Tallin in 1984 [text on the back is both in Russian and Estonian, the name of the city was officially written with one 'n' back then, I left it like that intentionally] 'Aquarius 21.I -- 18.II' by V. Stanishevskiy, from 'Zodiac signs' series. Left postcard is #8 from Soviet set 'Constellations' by G.G. Glebova [backside says printed in 1990 but most of offers of this set in second-hand shops I see 1983 as issue date, so maybe was issued several times] - it shows Cygnus [Swan] constellation, above - hand of Cepheus, on the right - Lyra, under Lyra - laurel branch from Hercules, on the left - Vulpecula [Fox with goose and arrow], lower - Aquila [Eagle], on the right - tail of the Serpens [Snake], on the left - part of Delphinus; there is more text on the back about all significant stars there.

left - received from kedb1, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017); center - received from klemens_ku, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017); right - received from firna, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017)

     Three more constellation cards come from Chinese set [design by miss time postcard, illustration by muzi], but all received from Russia, - Microscopium, Lyra, and Cetus. Funny that all of them [and previous two] were received in the same February birthdays round robin in 2017 - maybe the set was available in some postcard shops back then and I put 'space' in my wishes for that round? Natasha who sent the Aquarius card also put some nice presents in the envelope and the envelope itself was from one of my favourite page-of-a-journal technique. Stickers say: "I don't complain about anything", "I like everything", "I am pure and simple genius", "Don't open".

envelope (top front on the left and back on the right) and stickers (bottom) which were inside, received from Natasha, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017)

Weird postcard: Brushing hair

      Left one says 'Good Water for Good Hair', Longji Jinken [Longji is a town in Guangxi, China, known for Longsheng Rice Terraces, but I can't find what Jinken means], photo by Li Yashi. Right one is UNESCO WHS Jiuzhaigou Valley in the north of Sichuan Province in southwestern China, let me quote Eels, who visited Jiuzhaigou Valley along with UNESCO WHS Huanglong and city Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, in April, 2016: "Jiuzhaigou also known as nine-village valley is a deep valley of stunning natural scenery, it's a world of water famous for its crystal blue lakes and multi-level waterfalls".

left - CN-2206809, from emillin, China; right - received from Eels, China (HappyRR#300)

     The official postcard had nice set of stamps on the back and pretty stamp with return address [those stamps are one of signs of devoted postcrosser - even though card was received in 2017, user is still active on official site after many years]. Interesting that country name and postcrossing ID are marked by postmen in red ink: I think it might be that postcard got missent, because someone thought that ID is Chinese zip-code, so that's why country name was written in red ink in Chinese [the printed 'Russia' in Chinese can be seen on Eels's card - I'm not very proficient in reading Chinese fast hand-writing, but it looks similar, or not?].

left - stamps of CN-2206809, from emillin, China; right - backside of postcard, received from Eels, China (HappyRR#300)

Art through postcrossing [part #6 - Grzegorz Chudy]

     I wrote about the Polish postcard with the Witcher stamp, and that was the card, unimpressive at first, but then visiting the artist website, I liked his style more [www.grzegorzchudy.pl] and noticed I even have second postcard received from Germany by the same artist! The left one is 'Motorcycle and power plant in Zabrze' [I literally wasn't suspecting that card actually also fits industrial collection! To think of it - it almost went to kindergarten/children box for utilization]; right one is 'Anthem XXIV Book II', the little black and white frame on the backside says 'Frame me or mail me'.

left - PL-1290084, from Bluehydrangea, Poland; right - DE-5631990, from Misch-wald, Germany

     The German postcard came in the envelope with more goodies inside: the sticker and blueberry muffin teabag -- it was quite sweet! -- I usually take these to work either to drink myself or share with colleagues if I'm not a fan of the type [green and herbal often are not my cup of tea]. Sender writes on the back of the card that every time they look on this card, they ask themselves: "Where he wants to fly? And why?", it's 'stupid crazy art' but it made sender happy to look at - always interesting to receive something which was moving to another person.

from inside the envelope of DE-5631990, from Misch-wald, Germany

Maxicard: Russian actors and singers

     The amount of maxicards received from silent-gluk in couple years are easily a pack of 10 cm thick, and I 'packed' them in thematic posts, at some point the process of making them took silent-gluk away and she was enthusiastic not only making postcards of ours wishlist likings but all of them. That's how I own four of the maxicards with Soviet actors and singers. The series are Cavaliers of Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", it's mixed civilian and military order with four classes, so frequently famous culturally-significant persons end up on those stamps. Because of the format for this Order Cavaliers' stamp they are not very popular for postcrossing use, even though if they were just a portrait stamps I bet they would be used more. On first card - Galina Vishnevskaya (1926 -- 2012), Russian soprano opera singer and recitalist, on card - with her third husband Mstislav Rostropovich, Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor, they were married from 1955 till Rostropovich's death in 2007, two daughters were born in 1956 and 1958, so photo is taken in 1959 -- 1960 most likely. The postcard was printed by Master Cardmax club, which specialized in printing appropriate postcards for making maxicards on the day of issue, so one visiting the Central Post Office could pick and buy the appropriate card and fully participate the process of buying a stamp after standing in the long queue and then cancelling the stamp oneself [also after one's turn in a queue].

received from silent-gluk, Russia (direct swap)

     Another three curious pieces are postcards-maxicards made with stamps which are cut outs from envelopes with original commemorative pre-paid stamps [I wrote about that way of making them before here]. Also note how following the Russian tradition of making maxicard three elements -- postcard, stamp, and cancellation -- use different photo/picture as a reference [compared to recent maxicards' post where stamp and postcard are same]. Left one is 100 years birthday anniversary [22.01.2015] of Boris Andreev (1915 -- 1982); central one is 100 years birthday anniversary [05.03.2015] of Georgiy Zhzhonov (1915 -- 2005); right one is 100 years birthday anniversary [25.06.2015] of Pyotr Glebov (1915 -- 2000); all Soviet/Russian actors.

all received from silent-gluk, Russia (direct swap)

Actic: Soviet Polar Expedition

     Technically it's not a postcard, or at least not every postcrosser would accept that form as postcard, but separate item for collection - called postal cards with commemorative stamp [at least on rusmarka site], it's separate branch of officially issued postcards in USSR and now Russia - when the pre-paid artistic stamp is printed on the card, usually accompanied with small illustration in the left half of the postcard where the message would be, and back side is fully blank [somehow I failed to find whether there is international deltiology term for that one, maybe Boris, travelbat, knows]. Sometimes I receive those postal cards connected with my collected topics - like Arctic in this case!

front side (top) and stamps on the blank side (bottom), received from mosaika, Russia (Happy Birthday RR #2019)

     Stamps are left and right part of the 2008's International Polar Year se-tenant stamp, and the vintage postcard is dedicated to High-latitude polar expedition of Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in 1979, interesting that there was also a commemorative stamp about it [photo on wikipedia commons, photo is used on newspaper page in Russian wikipedia - quite interesting phenomenon actually that in many wikipedia pages if there is a postal stamp dedicated to person/event/organization, it will be used in photos there].

Postal observations: USA is a new Russia!

     Haha! -- I found this post in drafts and it's funny observation about delivery times during pandemic quarantines which was not published, but interesting how it is now. For ages [I mean in 2011 -- 2019] Russia was a country many unexperienced or just impatient postcrossers were complaining about - top-3 in amount of users so often Russian addresses were given, but delivery times were about 15-30 days compared to 2-5 days within Europe and USA. Starting around autumn 2020 postcards travelling to USA started to take more time [as far as I remember postcards on screenshot eventually took about 5 months to arrive], and since many people started the hobby during quarantines, a lot of US addresses were given out by the system. Interesting that back then in 2020 the hidden flaw in US postal system surfaced and for couple last years fully developed - postcards between USA and Europe [and even internal US mail] started to travel way slower than before, taking sometimes month or so.

my travelling postcards [04.02.2021]

     Nowadays there are less active Russian postcrossers than it's used to be [the 2025 hit hard too, many Moscowians got blocked by system even], and I've encountered people complaining they don't get enough postcards from Russia and sending to Russia on official site, since Russian users usually sending nice postcards -- so the complaints are sometimes opposite to 'I have too many cards travelling to Russia'.

     Yet another happy piece of news - USPS is sending officially to Russia again and Russian post started to travel faster than in 2025, so hopefully a little bit of balance will be introduced again into official statistics.

Wordplay: Marc Chagall, Taj Mahal [part #2]

     Left postcard is painting 'Smotriny' [Slavic wedding ceremony, part of the matchmaking], 1888, by N. V. Nevrev (1830 -- 1904) from State Tretyakov gallery; the guy says 'Sorry, darling, I was wrong' and girl replies with 'Okay, wait don't eat yet, I'll cook another one'. Right one is 'Motive without words', 1900, by V. E. Borisov-Musatov (1870 -- 1905), paper, watercolours, pastel, from State Tretyakov gallery; and the text in the bubbles is in English so you can read it =)

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     The wordplay #1 is 'Dementia was growing stronger, paramnesia was still fighting', the first part of the phrase is used to say in ironic way when situation around is turning to absurd. Interesting that both words for the syndromes which are used in Russian for dementia and paramnesia in older age are not medically correct terms, and almost looked like folk reading of someone's diagnosis a century and half ago - because the word used for paramnesia is sclerosis which has completely different meaning in medicine. Second wordplay says 'Marc Chagall, Taj Mahal... So everybody were busy' based on that surname and second part of the name are verbs in Russian which mean 'walked' and 'waved'.

backsides of postcards, received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

Victory Day postcards: Real directive from German WW2 officer [part #2]

<Note that below post including comments is not mine -- except for received postcards -- and is full translation from blog of Russian WW2 historian Aleksey Isaev [links in Russian: from war historian, I took the disclaimer and left comments from there too; similar report from another German officer as photo of Soviet translation], including his comments - with beige background - which widely refer to joke translated in part #1>

     Disclaimer. The excerpts below are from an official document, designated in the archives as Appendix 18 to the Wehrmacht's "Collection of Directives on the Procedure for Sending Reinforcements from the Reserve to the Active Army." Translated from German by Lieutenant Mansurov, Assistant to the 10th Department of the Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. The date is December 16, 1943. Similarities with the text of the master of humorous short fiction, Ivan Koshkin, are of a cultural and phenomenological nature [see part #1].

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap): left - says on front 'Stalingrad: The battle holy and just', photo by Arcady Shaikhet 'Political Comissar', 1942 from funds of the museum 'Battle of Stalingrad'; right - says on front 'October 5th - Day of memory of Podolsk's cadets' and shows Monument to Podolsk's cadets in Podolsk, Moscow region, official postcard issue by rusmarka, sculptors A. Myamlin, A. Novikov, Yu. Rychkov, architects - L. Zemskov, L. Skrob, photo by O. Sukhareva

     Notes by one officer, worthy of special attention, about the war on the Eastern Front. (Captain Schott). The study of "What Can Await You in Russia?" should be mandatory, as a program subject in all units, institutions, and hospitals. [In companies, batteries... they were actually forced to accept this by order.]

     1. You need to be a hunter. The German soldier in Russia faces an enemy at a lower level of cultural development. The Bolsheviks' advantage against us lies in their highly developed animal instincts and their insensitivity to weather and terrain. ["The Russian soldier is a child of nature; he eats what can't escape from him" (c) Ivan Koshkin]. If you want to defeat them, you must feel at home in the forest and the swamp. You must navigate at night and in fog as well as during the day. You must be able to sneak and crawl, like a hunter. You must be able to create a resting place in the forest. Anyone who wants to prepare their soldiers to fight the Bolsheviks must take them to the nearby swampy forest and conduct training there day and night, winter and summer.

     2. You must be resourceful. A Bolshevik is a master of all kinds of improvisation. He drops artillery shells from gliders [I don't get that, I think he's talking about bombs made from shells dropped from U-2s], he immediately uses captured weapons on the battlefield [the manuals for using the MG and other weapons weren't written for nothing], he hastily gathers peasant carts from nearby collective farms and sends them into the forests specifically to collect captured weapons, he rafts across wide rivers if he has no other means of crossing [the Battle of the Dnieper looks at the author with understanding]; he unexpectedly throws his reserves into battle on vehicles obtained from who knows where. We should follow his example.

     In the summer, we carry out deliveries by motorized traction, in the fall by pack animals, in the winter by sleds, and in the spring by peasant carts.

     3. You must be tireless. The Russian man is by nature quite lazy, but the commissar system gives him no peace and squeezes the last bit of energy out of him ["The Russians had commissars. Commissars are a terrible thing" (c), but in all seriousness]. There hasn't been a single day when the Russians haven't tried to strike us, even when they are completely weak. Day after day, they work to improve their positions, building roads and fortifications even in places where no active operations are expected. We once encountered strong fortifications east of Leningrad, which were all facing the east. Even at the beginning of the war, the Soviets anticipated the possibility of this city being encircled and prepared for it well in advance.

     A German soldier becomes careless in a prolonged fight [he is not a lazy Untermensch! You don't understand, that's something entirely different]. How much blood can be saved if you improve your positions daily! With daily work, you can make residential dugouts comfortable, dry, and cozy.

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap): left - poster 'Soviet tankmen!' by V.P. Viktorov, Moscow, 1946, reprint from funds of State Central Museum of Modern History of Russia; right - postcard from 'Prokhorovka field' museum, dedicated to Battle of Prokhorovka

     4. You must be suspicious. The Bolsheviks fight as best they can, resorting to devious and cunning methods. In Russia, danger awaits you at every turn, so you can't trust anyone, including the civilian population. [Especially if you're systematically execute them without trial, right?] Prisoners, especially the young ones, are all, without exception, devoted to Bolshevism. They're capable of any meanness. In battle, they make extensive use of mines [Really!? They planted mines? What a treachery], camouflage suits, ambushes [that's unfair, tsk-tsk], and so on. Only those accustomed to constant vigilance can anticipate the danger threatening them.

      5. You must be vigilant. The Russians often attack at night and in fog. They always manage to catch our troops off guard. Therefore, on the front lines, there's little to do but stay awake at night and sleep during the day. In difficult-to-observe terrain, units in the rear, either manning numerous outposts or failing to do so, often pay in blood for their carelessness. In Russia, it's impossible to distinguish between the rear and the front in the full sense of the word [judging by the remark about Leningrad, it's more likely to be encircled, but perhaps also partisans]. Anyone who abandons their weapons in territory east of the old imperial border may regret it the next moment [basically, "In grossen familien kluwen nicht klats-klats"—in a large family, don't click your beaks].

Wordplay: Food for thought [part #1]

     There is a 'natural' series of postcards which I receive from Lera, mondschein or Leroo, - with Soviet postcards of famous paintings which are not from my wishlist exactly with added bubbles with text [those were issued in such large quantities by art galleries and museums, so it's not 'ruining of rare postcard'] and on the back it's usually a wordplay or joke phrase made with cutout letters from journals and magazines in a style of ransom note. Let me start with couple of postcards received couple days ago technically not openly by post, but in a registered package but with nice stamps with cancellations from main post office in Moscow [which is currently changed location, historical building of Central Post Office was in a dire state for years and now finally closed for renovation - our hopes that they will find and finally deliver all the correspondence which was lost there in the last half of 2025]. Lera is still traumatized as many postcrossers by post delivery situation which was last year [now it's all back normal], so that's the way to deliver cards, which doesn't take any of the awesomeness of her messages!

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     Left postcard is V. N. Baksheyev's (1862 -- 1958) painting 'Unlucky wretches (At dinner)', 1901, from Kirov Regional Museum of Arts named after Gorky, printed in 1962 by Izogiz; the young man says: 'May I have chicory-based lavender latte with pecan milk with coconut', his mother answers: 'Don't you need to go to confession, possessed one'. Right postcard is a Gallant age illustration by Pierre Outin, the woman's bubbles says: 'Am I supposed to spread my legs for that?', men's: 'Huh, don't you have a vase at home?'

backsides of postcards, received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     Left one is a rephrase for common saying 'There is still powder in the powder flasks' [equivalent of 'Still have some lead in the pencil', 'Still life in the old dog' - are classic ways to say you still have energy, vigor, and capacity, regardless of age] but in slightly obscene way 'There is still some f*cks to give in our f*ck-giving flasks'. Right one is asking 'Whether is the brain mush can be a food for thought?' [Russian saying is 'porridge in the head' when one's thoughts are in the muddle]

Finnish tranquility

     Second one from tranquil series are Finnish postcards - primarily night views [also another city night view from the water - here, day views are usually more fun - like the one with baby stroller or with an elk]. Maybe night views are not fully fit the tranquility definition because there is some suspense hidden in the pictures, which first sender proves by choosing the card for phobia tag - for deep dark waters phobia - thalassophobia, but still they are borderline boring and calm. Both are postcards received in 2012, when I didn't scan the backside yet, so I can't share the photo/place/author info sadly, maybe later during sorting the physical cards I'll update.

left - received from nancyboy, Finland (Phobia tag); right - FI-1464781, from ritvap, Finland

Victory Day postcards: Bitter joke summary from German WW2 generals' memoirs [part #1]

     For the Victory Day this year I wanted to translate some modern history-related folklore from Russian internet. First part is sort of humorous summary [link in Russian] of all memoirs of Hitler generals, which were written after the war, during Cold War. Second part in separate post on contrary is a real document - a directive written by German officer in 1943 [turning point in the war when the initiative justify the Germans, and Russians started to win], which shows how much of a bitter joke first one really is, and how perception of Russian soldiers and all tactics and strategy in WW2 haven't changed, and it means the reasons of losing were not properly analyzed, and considering the history after, during Cold War were incorporated to the military doctrines of Western countries. All postcards used for illustration of these posts were received from Lera, mondschein or Leroo, for 9th of May in 2021.

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap): justify - from 2011 official rusmarka set about WW2 military [in Russian it's called 'field' as in battlefield] post, "Soldiers receive letters and newspapers in military post", photo by Chernov from Russian State Film and Photo Archive; right - Kievan Highway, M3, 75th kilometer - Monument of  battle glory of soldiers of 33rd Army and Moscow People's Militia/Volunteer troops - there on river Nara, they stopped the enemy and during counterattack on December 26th 1941 freed city of Naro-Fominsk,  postcard is printed in USSR in 1971

<Note that text below is not mine and is full translation of joke post by Ivan Koshkin, link in Russian>

     Lost Victories. Conclusions. The impressions from the memoirs of Heinz Guderian, Eike Middeldorf, Friedrich von Mellenthin, Erich von Manstein, and Kurt von Tippelskirch:

     1) Hitler was in our way. Hitler was a fool. The German soldier ruled. The German commander was like Frederick the Great, but without the vicious tendencies.

     2) The Russians overwhelmed us with meat. The Russians had plenty of meat. The Russian soldier is a child of nature: he eats what can't escape from him, sleeps standing up like a horse, and knows how to sneak. The author repeatedly witnessed entire Russian tank armies infiltrating the front lines, with nothing to indicate their presence — it seemed like just yesterday there had been a routine artillery barrage, bombing, a Russian advance, and then suddenly – BAM! – a Russian tank army was in our rear.

     3) The SS sometimes overdid it a bit. That is, if everything had been limited to the usual looting, shootings, rape, and destruction that German soldiers sometimes committed out of sheer excess of courage, many more people would have gladly accepted the new order.

     4) The Russians had a T-34 tank. That was unfair. We didn't have such a tank.

     5) The Russians had many anti-tank guns. Every soldier had an anti-tank gun — he hid with it in holes, tree hollows, in the grass, under tree roots.

     6) The Russians had many Mongols and Turkmen. Mongols and Turkmen, reinforced by commissars, are a terrible thing.

     7) The Russians had commissars. Commissars are a terrible thing. By definition. Most commissars were Jews. Even Yids. We exterminated our Jews, it was not thriftily and wise! Himmler was a fool.

     8) The Russians used a dirty trick – they'd pretend to surrender, and then – BAM! – shoot a German soldier in the back. Once, a Russian tank corps pretended to surrender and shot an entire heavy tank battalion in the back.

     9) The Russians were killing German soldiers. This was just utterly pathetic and unfair, because honestly, it was the German soldiers who should have been killing the Russians! The Russians are all assholes, every single one of them.

     10) The Allies betrayed us. I mean, the Americans and the British.

received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap) - card is an advertisement of TV channel 'Pobeda' [=Victory] project about WW2, photo by Anatoliy Morozov from Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, "Victory! May 2nd, 1945 on the streets of Berlin"

Victory Day [81 years]

     Nothing what happened after the war [for any Russian second World War, Eastern Front is THE war, Great Patriotic War it's called here, taking the name from previous Great Patriotic War - with Napoleon] spoils the heroic act and sacrifice which soldiers of Soviet Union made, same as nothing happened after redeems the ones who were torturing and murdering civilians and POW, even if they call that 'fight for freedom' now.

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     On left postcard recent monument to Soviet Soldier in Rzhev - Battles of Rzhev are one of the hardest episodes of the war, binding part of Army Group Center, ensuring the Battle of Stalingrad victory. The soldier dissolving into a flock of cranes cites the famous poem "Zhuravli" by Rasul Gamzatov, which became iconic thanks to its adaptation to music by Yan Frenkel: "I sometimes feel that the soldiers // Who have not returned from the bloody fields // Never lay down to earth // But turned into white cranes...". Monument was erected using donations and with help of Veteran's Committees of Russia and Belarus, sculptor Andrei Korobtsov and architect Konstantin Fomin were chosen for the project in international competition [there is a stamp dedicated to this monument]. The sculptor has another interesting monument in his portfolio -- Memorial complex "To the peaceful citizens of the Soviet Union who died during the Great Patriotic War", which also employs effect of transparent bottom, but with mirrors. Right postcard shows ships at anchor in Kronstadt during Navy parade on July 26--28th [Russian Navy day - Battle of Gangut in 1714, there is also a stamp dedicated to it].