Only in four postcards: Singapore

     In 2020 when this entry was planned Singapore was not a super rare country but there were not even a four cards left out from writing about them, so it was waiting in drafts [as well the whole only-in-four format for countries with few but not too few received cards]. Nowadays postal link between Singapore and Russia doesn't exist officially both ways, so no more official cards, but I still had a couple of very nice swaps with Singaporeans who visit Malaysia for business [I write about those cards later maybe when I have a mood for it, prepared the drafts with pictures just in case].

left - received from colleague while he was on business trip, Singapore (direct swap); right - received from <unknown>, probably same colleague on other trip [funny I had a wrong ID in the file name, so first this card showed up as SG-285396]

     Based on the received postcards Singapore seems like a very picturesque location, but somehow I got also plenty of ad and weird cards from there too: from Valkyries and manuscripts to police recruitment ads. I was reminded that this draft exist when Seraker, fellow Singaporean postcrosser from the Blast of the Past RR, wrote in the Russian subforum that he wanted to conduct the experiment of sending to Russia via Malaysia [with using of Malaysian stamps together with Singaporean], so we'll see how that experiment goes!

left - SG-211677, received from JonathanChua, Singapore; center - SG-82698, from wen_postcrossing, Singapore; right - SG-241647, from falalalala, Singapore

Only in four postcards: Say goodbye to PostNord, Denmark!

      I planned this post after I saw announcement on official forum that [here and after I quote from original post by VilhelmR on forum, seeing post doesn't require forum login]: "At the turn of the year 2025, PostNord (in Denmark) delivers its last letter". With such news I prepared a draft for post with couple of last postcards from Denmark, which I haven't shown before - there were not many and since it always was fairly rare country with very high price of postage, it was exceptional to get any -- means usually post followed. All through this year there was lots of swaps organized to received Danish cards, some German postcrossers even travelled there to do so.

same card, received from sakurasan, Denmark (direct swap); left is scan from old scanner from work, and right one is from my current home scanner made during utilization queue [if you ever wonder how different cards can look on screen/digital copy and in reality]

     Sunset over sea photo by Robert Trojaborg Andersen is a card from 2015 swap [travelled - yes, with slow post, I'm obsessed now with looking at delivery dates - from March, 12 to March, 26], message on the back written in Dutch, and it has interesting 'B Economique' sticker instead of Air Mail on the back. Second card shows how Copenhagen looked in the 1930s, now there is no trams anymore, stamps were very interesting and again the economy sticker [card was sent on February, 09 - received March, 05, 2015]. And the last but not the least - one of friends' travels - sent on August, 08 - received on August, 29, 2019 [ah, pre-covid post travel times!] - funny rant on the back about postal expenses on holiday, almost 4 euro for a tiny stamp [considering 12.5 krones of 2015 cards 30 krones on 2019's card is quite a raise].

left - received from Kurba, Denmark (direct swap); right - received from Shaula, on travel in Denmark (direct swap)

stamps and sticker of postcard, received from Kurba, Denmark (direct swap)

     The more exciting to see now, when finding the original post on the forum, - moderator announcement that "The mail delivery in Denmark doesn’t stop at December 31, 2025. The private company Dao will take over at January 1, 2026".