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)