Україна

Shown here is my first cover from the Ukraine!

Unfortunately, the Українське Державне Підприємство Поштового Зв`язку (or the Ukrainian State Enterprise of Posts) seems to be down so I have limited access to information about these stamps.

Anyway, the stamp on the far right is one in a set of three stamps issued 23 Feb 2008 with the title "Paintings of Taras Shevchenko." The stamp I received shows his self-portrait, painted in 1840.

A bit more on Shevchenko:

He was a Ukrainian poet, artist and humanist. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language. Shevchenko also wrote in Russian and left many masterpieces as a painter and an illustrator.

He was also featured on Ukrainian banknotes as well as on a commemorative USSR coin.

As for the four definitives to the left, I couldn't find any information on them, but they seem to showcase artifacts of Ukrainian heritage and culture.

An interesting thing about this cover is that it was franked twice. Notice that there are four postmarks, but not all are the same! Two are in Ukrainian and the other two in English! I do not know if this is the standard procedure in Ukraine for international posts or maybe it was just a coincidence that this cover was postmarked more than once and in both languages at that!