Industrial: Caterpillar 795F

 Along with Belarussian haul truck BelAZ [one of biggest ultra heavy ones], I received another legendary one - Caterpillar 795F [the wikipedia article only exists for Caterpillar 797 which is 50 tons heavier], one of the heaviest from that producer. I can't complain on getting wonderful postcards from Norway outside of regular touristic views and with amazing set of stamps, which on other hand is often the sign of rapid tariffs raise in the past, when stamps of older issues are getting outdated for current tariffs fast. In one of previous Norway post I listed 33 NOK as current tariffs, so if I count all on that postcard it'll be 26.2 NOK in November, 2020.

front (left) and backside (right) of NO-204251, from Inger71, Norway

     Interesting that coal mining in Norway is mostly centered on Svalbard archipelago, and another coal miners there are Russians with Arktikugol, following accepting the Svalbard Treaty in 1935 which recognize sovereignty of Norway over the archipelago only if Norway grants presence on Svalbard to any country with legit commercial activity [Norway and Russia in the present - basically for Russia it's the way to prevent militarization of the island by hostile organizations]. Text on the back places the truck in the open-pit largest Swedish copper mine outside Gällivare, postcard is printed by Boliden AB, a Swedish multinational metals, mining, and smelting company.

Arctic: Northern Land Archipelago

     One of my favourite issues - about Arctic - and not so old, it was issued already when I was an active postcrosser, so I was lucky to receive the maxicard with the central stamp. The Northern Land, also known as Severnaya Zemlya or before 1926 - Emperor Nicholas II Land, lies north from Taymyr Peninsula, separates Kara and Laptev seas of Arctic Ocean, holds largest glacier in Russia; it's only archipelago discovered in XX century [1913, so 100 years anniversary was in 2013, celebrated with that stamps] and basically last sizeable - 37,000 sq.km - piece of land which was charted on the maps in 1930 -- 1932. On maxicard - Boris Vilkitsky, a Russian hydrographer and surveyor, on stamps, left and right, icebreakers Vaygach and Taymyr [both will get future nuclear reincarnations as shallow-draft - for rivers - Vaygach and Taymyr, both in active service].

left - received from silent-gluk, Russia (direct swap); right - the souvenir sheet [source: rusmarka.ru]

#Arctic: Polar bears

     Polar bears live in the Arctic and supposingly I should have received lots of them based on the wishlist, but seems haven't received that many, at least not in the 2011 -- 2020 bunch which was processes to draft posts [there were some both in post piles received on 2023.07.14 and on 2024.02.08, some illustrated ones: 1, 2, and 3, and even handmade one - so probably there will be more polar bears in blog when I get to the more recent cards]. First card comes from dear ri17, whom I met initially on official forum and then in Russian livejournal community and she's still there in our telegram chat, so we 'postcrossingly' know each other for more than 14 years. I don't have the scan of the backside but I know that the card was printed by wonderful photographer from Murmansk Mikhail Slavin [who had a webshop mslavin, then renamed to www.northern-souvenirs.ru, and if anyone wants to buy postcards about Arctic and icebreaker it's one of best place, and bear card is still being sold].

left - received from ri17, Russia (10x10RR#61); right - received from zabava_zanoza, Russia (originally postcard is from Canada, Favorites #198)

     Second card is Canadian postcard with polar bear photography by Norbert Rosing, 1998 [www.rosing.de], who specializes in wild life photos for magazines and even published a book about polar bears 'Bear Beginnings: New Life on the Ice'. Zabava_zanoza writes on the back that she heard long ago in some Natural History museum that polar bears' fur is transparent for ultraviolet and skin underneath is 'tanned', on other hand brown bears' fur is stopping ultraviolet, so if you shave them both, brown bear will be more 'white' than polar bear xD The last one is 19th century illustration of polar bear [there were no info of name of illustration, but somehow I find it when I add Darwin to the search terms, so could be it's from one of his books?], elvigo writes that on February, 27th Day of Polar Bear is celebrated [funny that I know that, because in kindergarten where my boys go it's one of the event for kids - learning about polar bears]. Stamps were also interesting: on zabava_zanoza card old Victory Day stamp of 2005, even country name there is Rossija instead of Russia, and 'Malye Korely'; on elvigo's card - thematical one with polar bear from 'The fauna of Sakha Republic (Yakutiya)'.

received from elvigo, Russia (direct swap)

left - stamps of postcard received from zabava_zanoza, Russia (Favorites #198); right - stamps of postcard received from elvigo, Russia (direct swap)

     P.S. Just noticed that in tags and posts I misspell Arctic with the 's' in the end, need to go and retcon fix all that xD

One-sided postal card with not-so-original stamp

     The rule of digging in the drafts of this blog is that if you find accidentally one draft and make it into a post, then you can find another draft which is dedicated to the same/similar type of postcard, but with some links included [the particularity of having received too many postcards is that sometimes they are mentioned multiple times in different posts too]. So link was to wikipedia page - and indeed one-sided postal card with original/commemorative stamp only have page in Russian and Belarussian, even though it mentioned that other countries were also issuing them [there is also separate page for Soviet cards, there were 230 issued in 1971 -- 1991, and the full list page].
     Postal cards of this post are something different though - except for the first one which is dedicated to 2nd UN Conference on research and usage of outer space for peaceful purposes, held in 9 -- 22 August, 1982, in Vienna, Austria [with matching cancellation!], artist is G. Komlev, printed by USSR Ministry of Communications. Second one is called art unmarked card, usually under that category rusmarka issues postcards which can be used for maxicards [and naturally official maxicards are in that category on the website which is not very obvious in my opinion], in 2019 there were four unmarked cards issued for the Cosmonautics Day: 1, 2, 3, and 4. The cancellation stamp with sputnik is not official postal one but from rusmarka salon in Saint Petersburg [I was trying to figure out how those cancellation are called - cinderella cancellations? decorative cancellations? wikipedia page has the whole list of quite interesting types - apparently the most common one every post office does is called bullseye cancellation]. Bottom row shows one-sided postal cards with pre-paid stamp - on rusmarka those go under just postal cards category and many Russians postcrossers speculate that some post workers consider only those as REAL postcards [to which the postcard tariff apply! 'B' is pre-paid inner-Russia tariff  and one can add missing difference for international tariff]: left one is dedicated to 100 years anniversary of Yevpatoria tram, has Rostov-on-Don cancellation [but sender writes she brought it from vacation in Crimea], and front and back are covered with nice ink linocut stamps of airships, air balloons, bikes and lighthouses; right one is dedicated to Belka and Strelka space flight in 1960, issued in 2020 with Chelyabinsk cancellation.

top left - received from klemens_ku, Russia (LJ Happy Birthday RR 2017); top right - received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap); bottom left - RU-5109830, from Agea, Russia; bottom right -  received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     The definition of one-sided postal card with original/commemorative stamp includes: 1) having as indicia [marking on a mail piece as opposed to an adhesive stamp showing that postage has been prepaid by the sender] printed stamp with original illustration which is not issued separately without the postal card; 2) address and stamp which would be typically on backside, and illustration which would be on front side are all three on the frontside and backside is fully blank for sender's message. In philately such cards are considered one of the types of postal stationery. Other four postal cards are about ships [and Arctic!]. First one is with Nuclear Icebreaker 'Lenin' is dedicated to 50 years of Nuclear Icebreaker Fleet of Russia in 2009 [there were more cards of that issues with all other ships, sadly I didn't get all of them], it came from Murmansk, where 'Lenin' rests in the bay as museum ship. Second card is also with 'Lenin' icebreaker, issued in 2017, with two cancellations of Arctic and Antarctic Museum in Saint Petersburg. Then the third one is with Nuclear Icebreaker 'Sibir' [the old one] on the North Pole in 1987, issued in 2017, with cancellation of International Arctic Forum in Saint Petersburg, 2019. And last one is dedicated to 75 years anniversary of Arctic and Antarctic Museum [and there were three cards issued], shows icebreaker 'Krasin', which is now a ship museum in Saint Petersburg - card has 2012's cancellation from that museum [technically 'Krasin' is a part of Museum of World Ocean which is based in Kaliningrad] and the Arctic and Antarctic Museum cancellation.

top left - RU-3344381, from Ainaboriel, Russia; top right and both on the bottom - received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     Another piece for collecting which is specifically Russian thing is postcards of shop-salons 'Collector', official shops of Russian stamp producer rusmarka - here I have two from mondschein, from Barnaul and Tambov. They are included for free in every stamp order and since to make profit most 'Collector' salons sell to postcrossers Russia-wide through social networks, the geography of these are pretty wide [sadly, some salons got closed recently, but still existing ones are in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Archangelsk, Astrakhan, Barnaul, Belgorod, Bryansk, Vladivostok, Volgograd, Voronezh, Ekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Kirov, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Murmansk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Perm, Petrozavodsk, Pskov, Ryazan, Samara, Saratov, Sevastopol, Smolensk, Stavropol, Tambov, Tomsk, Tula, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk, Yaroslavl - you can see all on map here]. Barnaul one has fake special cancellations of the salons, there are usually dozens of them available there, if you buy stamps physically in salon.

both received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     And finally a piece of history which was probably the inner envelope of one of gifts with postal goodies from mondschein is the vintage Soviet envelope, she got from one of the second-hand shops along with Soviet postcards. It has interesting layout - small place for a stamp, which is horizontal rather than typical vertical; receiver address goes in the middle full length; sender address is in lower right corner where nowadays typically receiver address would be. Backside has a template for writing zip-code [for foreign addresses 555 works for faster travel] and the price - 1 kopeck for two envelopes [probably price says that envelope may be as old as 1960s, but can't be sure, prices in USSR were pretty stable].

front and back of Soviet vintage envelope, received from mondschein, 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].

Maritime industrial [post received 2024.02.08 - part#12]

     The post on that day would not be complete without some icebreakers and accompanying industrial maritime postcards. First card is official rusmarka [Russian postal stamps publisher] issue of nuclear powered icebreakers - Sibir [Sibir and  Arktika on official site, they are used as base for maxicards for corresponding stamps issue]. The RR group theme was 'Surprise envelope', beside icebreaker there were two tea bags and one other postcard, which I show later, as well as received maxicards with these two icebreakers.

received from Dashushty, Russia (Russian Many Themes RR#870) and mondschein, Russia (direct swap) and probably more times which I don't remember, it's certainly THE postcard for me

     Next one is from Chinese set of WWII USA propaganda posters available globally, interesting that I had the set long ago too, back in 2011-2012 when I just started postcrossing, they are rather thin, backside is same beige as the frame on the front. backside was written in Russian. And the last one is one of British PHQs with nice stamps on the back [always amazed on how many pretty stamps there are in UK along with nice postcards made out of stamps] showing British Engineering Achievements (Emergency Support Vessel Iolair [Gaelic for eagle]), reproduced from a stamp designed by Michael Taylor and issued by the Post Office on 25 May 1983 [notice how British post office is THE, same as their stamps don't have country name on because they are THE stamps xD], price 13p, printed at The House of Questa, London, England.

left - DE-13825536, from Tiaronny, Germany; right - GB-1722558, from Jaycee, UK

stamps of GB-1722558, from Jaycee, UK

Arctic from IreneBP, Norway [part#3]

     Swap was finalized with two exceptional Arctic research related cards - first one only has names of Bjørn Rasch-Tellefsen and 'Odd' Ivar Ruud on the back, seems it shows Arctic exploration with beginning of 21st century equipment. Brief internet search finds B. Rasch-Tellefsen being a photographer and member of Norwegian Photographers' Association, translation of Norwegian short bio reads: "He has photographed throughout Northern Norway and on Svalbard and the coast from Bergen and northwards. Rasch-Tellefsen has a large postcard production, including aerial photographs", so I assume he was the publisher of the postcard [and possibly photographer?]. Searching Ivar Ruud finds a book 'The Year-Long Day: One Man's Arctic' by A. E. Maxwell, Ivar Ruud is the hero of that book, living alone on Spitsbergen/Svalbard [photos in the book are also Ruud's], from description on Amazon: "Four hundred miles to the North Pole, a hundred to the nearest town. Intense wind and cold, the mountains swept clean of everything but moss, lichen, snow, and ice, the largest tree an 8-inch-high birch. Why would a young man choose to live totally alone in this unforgiving environment, hunting and trapping, never for a moment able to take his daily survival for granted?... "

both received from IreneBP, Norway (direct swap)

     Second postcard is from 2011 Nansen–Amundsen year hosted by Norwegian Polar Institute - two anniversaries with great significance for Norway: 150 years since the birth of Fridtjof Nansen and 100 years since Roald Amundsen, accompanied by four of his men, arrived as the first at the South Pole. The postcard features Fridtjof Nansen (1861 - 1930) – Polar explorer, scientist, diplomat, international humanist and celebrity, – photo by Henry van der Weyde, from collection of The National Library, and photos in collage made by Fridtjof Nansen, and unknown member of Fram expedition. Apparently Nansen didn't travel that much as I thought - basically just the amazing ski trip across Greenland and try for North Pole via frozen in pack ice, after he was more of ambassador of exploration; Amundsen on other hand on some account was the first man both on North [aerial] and South Pole [overtaking poor Scott by mere weeks]. Norwegian Polar Institute had more photos of Nansen and some about Amundsen dedicated to the 2011 year anniversaries, now in archive.

     While I was checking the cards info in the scans, since Norway became rare country I checked the stamps too - what if they were the only stamps I've ever received from there? And surprisingly [or not surprisingly?] one of them were Vikings! For checking the tariff's raise dynamic I checked prices for Norwegian post on official forum, seems domestic now is 25 NOK; Europe: 33 NOK [includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Greenland, Russia, Türkiye]; Other: 39 NOK. So back then Europe tariff was 25 NOK, quite a raise in last 8 years.

stamps on envelopes, both received from IreneBP, Norway (direct swap)

Pevek returns - with RGO card! [part #3]

     My colleague who goes visiting his relatives in far away Arctic city, Pevek, suggested to send postcards again because previous time was semi-fail [part #2 - well, amazing vintage Chukotka postcards can't be a full fail though] and also making them to go through post properly, so Pevek cards same as from first nuclear industrial city [part #1 - from Snezhinsk] got a second chance. This time he found real postcards, five characteristic photos promoting tourism of the region, collaboration project by Russian Post and Russian Geographical Society, RGO. These postcards, especially sent from corresponding region, are quite a collection theme in Russian postcrossing, so I'm lucky to receive them in that sense [here are pieces of news about the project from RGO website: 1 and 2, sadly it seems they haven't finished it, and cards became truly rare, all other types of postcards now on their website]. And the idea of the project seems fascinating to me - even at remote locations there are regional cards for rare occasional tourists [or wild postcrosser], it may be the cards will end up somewhere in the storage of the local post office, laying still for 30+ years, same as happened with Soviet cards from previous post.

     Chukotka Autonomous Okrug [=region] is 7th largest region in Russia, it covers an area over 721,481 square kilometers [somehow English version of wikipedia has bigger numbers of area], so naturally if picking up only five views, they are all quite far away from Pevek, Wrangel island would be the closest. First two cards took about a month to arrive. Left card says 'Chukotka Autonomous Okrug = Place which is worth a visit' and shows urban-type settlement Egvekinot, Iultinsky District, photo by Valeriya Danilova. Right card says 'Chukotka Autonomous Okrug = It's more beautiful in real life' and shows a humpback whale in the Passage of Sinyavin, National Park 'Beringiya' [https://beringia.tilda.ws/en], photo by Edward Adrian-Vallance [found his website: https://www.offtheunbeatentrack.com/about/].

both received from P, colleague from Pevek, Chukotka, Russia (received on February, 13th, 2025)

     Even though colleague said that he sent all five cards at once, and was 'lucky' to have his flight delayed because of weather conditions, so on 9th of January post office finally opened after New Year holidays, cards were arriving in three batches, which is odd, considering there are weekly regular flights and I assume all cards should have travelled in one postal bag. Left card says 'Chukotka Autonomous Okrug = Just come!' and shows Providence Bay, Gulf of Anadyr, photo by Stanislav Zotov. Right card says 'Chukotka Autonomous Okrug = It's better to see with your own eyes' and shows Wrangel island, photo by Andrey Parshin.

both received from P, colleague from Pevek, Chukotka, Russia (received on February, 27th, 2025)

     And the fifth one arrived on its own next week, in March. All had stamps enough for sending an envelope [31 rubles = three 10 rubles and one 1 ruble standard 'eagle' stamps] instead of postcard tariff [22 rubles back then], but considering very few people use to send postcard from the city on the shore of Arctic Ocean, lack of knowledge of local clerks is understandable. Card says 'Chukotka Autonomous Okrug = From where it's beautiful' and shows river Tkachen of National Park 'Beringiya', photo by Valeriya Danilova.

postcard (left) and outgoing cancellation on stamp (on January, 9th, 2025) (right), received from P, colleague from Pevek, Chukotka, Russia (received on March, 5th, 2025)

Self prints: Taiga nature photos and collages [din-s-din, Russia]

     I love anything unique and self-printed postcards while being amazing not always fully satisfy my wish for uniqueness. Like let's say if someone is printing on the carton or professional typography a photo of theirs which can be sold in any postcrossing shop a thousand times, it usually means photo is leaning towards universal "likeness". There are two nice postcard shops which sell mostly/only photos made by the owners: 1) pigeon-post.ru, owned by St. Petersburg-based irra_cards [good penpal of my good penpal, firna, also collage and decoration sets are sold in the shop, nice! I think I also have some cards received from her, under irra_irra]; 2) northern-souvenirs.com, owned by Murmansk-based Mikhail Slavin.
     Of course maybe it depends on a topic - anything about Arctica is plenty unique for me. And one of favourite postcards made from photos are by din_s_din, who is living in the city in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug [I showed her previous cards before - 1 and 2]. Her city was established in 1969 to house engineers and personnel who maintain gas pipelines from Yamal penisula, first card shows those lines - yes, it's industrial card! Pipelines are hidden under ground, so the fields remain of use for reindeers. 

 
received from din_s_din, Russia (direct swap)

     Another four are continuation of 'tundra carpets' - I can watch them forever, and every time I am myself anywhere to the North, Finland or Karelia, I can crouch around for ages, taking macro photos of every leaf, plant, mushroom, berry, lichen. The nature of the Extreme North is something which attracts and makes one kneel to adore every little detail. It feels like plants there made a lot of effort to grow and survive, so the energy of survival success is magnetic.

all received from din_s_din, Russia (direct swap)

     On the backsides of the cards were absolutely amazing collages with berries and mushrooms. J'adore! Especially how the photographed parts are enhanced with graphic parts, and the local ad materials and newspapers are used, so special.

backsides, both received from din_s_din, Russia (direct swap)

Perks of instant memory: Accidental compilation

     I posted two received cards on the forum to thank the senders and they accidentally match so well - like the cave is a continuation of the drawing. Left one is from 'Campaign (expedition trip) headquarters of Fyodor Konyukhov' printed by Darinchi publishing house - autolithography 'Meditation' from series 'Way to the North' [I have another card from Konyukhov trip too, and I'm certain I've received more just didn't write about them yet], 1986. On the back: "For the short run tightly packed backpack became a throne for resting for the traveler. He is gazing at the beauty of pristine nature of the northern lands and getting into painting a picture with his soul". Second postcard is a Blue lake in front of Shulgan-Tash (Kapova) cave [shulgan-tash.ru], it's in Bashkortonstan and has some drawings [and I received cards with that cave before too - 1 and 2].

left - received from marmalade3sky, Russia (direct swap); right - received from travelbat, Russia (direct swap)

Cute Arctic/Antarctic animals

     I think that during last year Lera, mondschein, sent me virtually every Russian postcard from my wishlist from every postcrossing webshop there is. I'm lucky to have her as my penpal, and to be fair all my penpals send terrific stuff towards me, I can never be thankful enough! I find having a penpal is like having a very special kind of friend - to whom you're constantly making these little personalized gifts which are partly handmade, partly involve searching for the rare item. This post features all the cute animals of two poles. First three are drawn by illustrator, who already was at the blog - Sonechka Nemarmeladova [vk.com/siberianowl]: Bear Fisher (left), Bear shaman (center), and Penguin on an ice floe (right). The right one has a confession on the backside - mondschein doesn't like penguins, but likes bears, and wonder if you put some penguins on the North Pole, will they thrive there to be a food for the white bears?

all received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)

     The left one is 'Northern Fairy Tales' by Anna Speshilova [annaspeshilova@instagram]. The backside has a warning from Lera's grandmother that there is a bear which didn't go to the winter hibernation in the North-East of the Moscow region - which appears to be true! Apparently there are about 15 total wild brown bears in the Moscow region. The right one is printed by webshop 'The Carrot&Parrot' [www.thecarrotparrot.com] and was meant for Ben's birthday during the New Year LJ Round robin.

left - all received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap); right - received from firna, Russia (New Year LJ RR)

     The backside of mondschein's postcards are as always including not only the themed stamps - with 2006's Yakutia's fauna and with 2006's 50 years anniversary of Russian exploration of Antarctica, but also themed stickers and cut-outs from the journals. The right one has a funny task from the primary school math book: 'Mum bought 5 packs of salt. Family ate 2 packs during lunch. How many were left?'. The right sticker says 'Moments of Happiness'.

backside decoration of postcards, received from mondschein, Russia (direct swap)