2008 Olympics

So, it's already 2010 and I still have some scans from 2008 that I haven't posted. Not a good sign. Well, anyway, I thought I might share these scans of some covers I received with the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the theme. Some are FDCs while others are just regular covers.

The Beijing Olympics was one of the reasons why I finally decided on visiting Beijing in 2008. On top of the fact that everything would be in tip-top shape and that the city would be manicured to perfection (you can always count on the Chinese government when it comes to making a presentation), I thought it was high time that I visited the famed Great Wall. I also visited Shanghai on this trip and took the 12-hour overnight train from there to Beijing.

I must say that I liked both cities and hope to one day return. I also plan to maybe hike portions of the Great Wall. Want to join? :-)

This cover uses the official FDC, but it was not sent on issue date. My friend just used the FDC envelope but sent the cover much later, which I think is okay. At least I have the FDC envelope.

This cover has the complete set of Russian Olympics stamps, but my friend Alexander decided to use a commemorative cover instead of a regular envelope. The cancels have a special design, but not the Olympics FDC cancellation.

Because I like covers sent directly to my address, I asked my friend Andrzej to sent me the FDC even after the day of issue. Thankfully, Poczsta Polska allows for the sending of FDCs even after day of issue, like in the Philippines. So, strictly speaking, this is not an FDC, but it does use the official envelope and it h asthe official cancellation, which is good enough for me.

Unfortunately, the only real FDC I have does not have an official FDC envelope because Korea Post does not issue them.

While there is no indication on the cover, this was actually sent to me after the day of issue with the special cancellation. There are just no other postmarks or markings to indicate this. There is a boxed chop on the upper right hand side because this cover was "received in bad order" at the Central Mail Exchange Center in the Philippines. In fact, the cover was covers in strips of tape that attempted to "seal" the small tears found themselve on the low quality paper of the envelope as it was handled.

This cover does not have the complete set and was actually not sent through the mail system although it looks like it was. My friend Alberto initially planned on sending the FDC direct to my address, but he seemed to have a problem. I think it was that the stamps did not fit on the cover and the postal clerk wouldn't let him attach extra postage onto the reverse, or something like that.

대한민국, Россия, and Filipinas

Here is what some may consider a heavily WW2-themed cover as all the stamps, save for the two bird definitives at the left edge, celebrate an event that took place in the Philippines during WW2.

One of the stamps shows the liberation of Los Banos. The raid at Los Baños in the Philippines on 23 February 1945, by a combined U.S. Army Airborne and Filipino guerrilla task force, which resulted in the liberation of 2,147 Allied civilian and military internees from an agricultural school campus turned Japanese internment camp, was celebrated as one of the most successful rescue operations in modern military history. It was the second precisely-executed raid by combined U.S.-Filipino forces within a month, following on the heels of the Raid at Cabanatuan at Luzon on January 30, in which 513 Allied military POWs had been rescued.

The Liberation of Cabanatuan is also shown on one of the stamps. The Raid at Cabanatuan in the Philippines on 30 January 1945 by US Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas resulted in the liberation of 511 prisoners of war (POWs) from a Japanese POW camp near Cabanatuan and was a celebrated historic achievement involving Allied special forces during World War II.

Edward Dmytryk's 1945 film Back to Bataan starring John Wayne opens by retelling the story of the raid on the Cabanatuan POW camp. The raid was recreated, with great attention to historical accuracy, in the 2005 John Dahl film The Great Raid.

The other stamps celebrate the liberation of other places in the Philippines, such as UST, which I discussed in an earlier post.

Below are two other covers.

Россия

Here is another neat cover from Russia that arrived nice and clean as if it never went through the postal system! The "Misssent to Malaysia" franking is the only telltale evidence that it did. The cover has three stamps, all of which share the theme of fauna. Since there seems to be no database of stamp issues provided by the Russian Postal Service, I guess I'm left to figure things out for myself. The stamp on the left with the horse is part of a 4v set titled "Native Horse Breeds" issued 07 Nov 07. The set features the Vladimir, Orlov, Vyatsky, and Don breeds. The stamp on this cover shows the Vyatsky breed. More on this:

The Vyatsky breed is one of the most interesting one in the history of the Russian horse-breeding. Even now its origins are not found. Some of the literature resources mentioned that these horses are descendants of the Estonian clippers, brought by citizens of Novgorod and Pskov in the Vyatsk, Kazan and Perm province near the year of 1720 under the Peter the Great or even earlier under the Tsar Alexei Mikhaylovich. The Vyatsky breed was so well-known that it was even mentioned in the letters and works of A.S. Pushkin, M.E. Saltykov-Shedrin, and V.K. Korolenko.

In a post entitled "Russia" on my blog published 26 Jun 08, I also put up a scan of another cover received from Russia with a native breed stamp on it. That one shows the Don breed. More on that:

The Don breed was influenced by many other breeds over a period of its history. Cossacks brought from their raids horses, such as Karabakh, Turkmenian, and Persian, so it has been mostly influenced by their Oriental origins. From the middle of the 19th century the Don breed was upgraded using Orlov and Orlov-Rostopchin and Streletsk sires. In this period the Old Don originated from the steppe ancestors was turning into the breed for the stud-farms. In the 19th-20th centuries, the Don breed was greatly influenced by the thoroughbreds. Now the Don breed has such qualities that make it irreplaceable in the horse schools for children, in farming, in riding and even in the hippotherapy, which is a treatment method involving horses as a means of working on physical, occupational, and speech-language goals.

The stamps on the upper right I consider to be quite special because they are the Russian issue of the Russia-North Korea joint issue featuring fauna from the two countries. The issue was released on 01 Jun o5. I find this combination quite interesting as Russia was a communist country and North Korea is still a communist country and, plus, rarely do you hear about stamps from North Korea. I remember that when I was younger a friend of my mother's often gave me covers from North Korea as he had family who were left there after the war. Unfortunately, young as I was, I knew little of the value of such articles and lost track of the covers and stamps, which are now gone.

Anyway, a little more on the animals:

The Russian animal featured on the issue is the sable, a small carnivorous mammal, closely related to the martens. It inhabits forest environments primarily in Russia from the Ural Mountains throughout Siberia, in northern Mongolia and China and on Hokkaidō in Japan. Its range in the wild originally extended through European Russia to Poland and Scandinavia. It has historically been harvested for its highly valued fur, which remains a luxury good to this day. While hunting of wild animals is still common in Russia, most fur in the market is now commercially farmed.

The North Korean animal featured on the issue is the Siberian tiger, also known as the Amur tiger, Manchurian tiger, or Ussuri tiger is a rare subspecies of tiger confined completely to the Amur region in the Far East, where it is now protected. It is considered to be the largest of the nine recent tiger subspecies and the largest member of the family Felidae.

The stamps were cancelled with a very nice, clear franking on 24 Jun 08 at Vakhrushi, Kirov Oblast.

Россия

Here is a beuatiful cover from Russia. I couldn't find any site with any info on the issue dates and other technical details, but I was able to figure things out since I can decipher the Russian script.

The three stramps on the upper right are most probably definitives and were issued in 1998 showing what seems to be a space satellite. Perhaps these stamps pay tribute the launching of some space craft; I am not so familiar with this field of science, so that's all I can say about them.

The other stamp on the lower left is also a definitive issued in 1998, this time showing the logo of Πочта Рoccии, or Russian Post. A little history on them:

Russian Post is a founding member of the Universal Postal Union created in 1874. In 1902 Chief Postal Service was made part of the Internal Affairs Ministry and in 1917 under the Provisional Government it became part of Ministry of Post and Telegraph. During the Great Patriotic War Soviet postal service part of People's Commissariat of communications was delivering up to 70 million mails per month to the Soviet army front from the rear under extremely difficult and often very dangerous conditions.

In 1993 Russian Post became a part of Ministry of Communications and in 2002, its status changed from a government ministry to a Unitary enterprise in the framework of the restructuring the federal postal communication agencies. The company's headquarters are located in Moscow.

And now for the two beautiful commemoratives:

The one on the left, issued in 2007, pays homage to Vladimir Bekhterev, a Russian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist. Perhaps this stamp commemmorates his 80th death anniversary since he died in 1927. A little more on Bekhterev:

Bekhterev was the one who noted the role of the hippocampus in memory around 1900. Bekhterev founded the field of psycho reflexology, transferring Ivan Pavlov's work on dogs to humans. From his writings we can tell that he and Pavlov acted like enemies. He is most remembered for Bekhterev's disease.
In 1907 Bekhterev founded the PsychoNeurological Institute, later renamed the St. Petersburg State Medical Academy. He died in 1927, after an interview with Stalin, who presumably sought his expertise in dealing with depression. The facts of his death may never be known, but it has been speculated that the outspoken Bekhterev had diagnosed Stalin with paranoia, causing Stalin, who did not agree with the diagnosis, to have the doctor killed.

The stamp on the right, issued in 2008, reads "150-Летие Выхода в Почтовое обращение Первой Российской Марки," which translates to "150th Anniversary of the issue of the first Russian Stamp." The first Russian stamp is depicted next to a what seems to be a horse seld, perhaps the means of transportaing mails in 1858 Russia. This is a very beautiful stamp and I really like it since its topic is one of my favorites: Stamps on Stamps and Postal History.

The cover on which the stamps are affixed is very nice as well. I wish I knew what that building was. Maybe the envelope has an explanation on the back like most of my other Russian covers do. I'll get back to this as soon as I can.

Finally, the stamps were franked on 28 Mar 2008 at Saint Petersburg, which is is often described as the most Western European-styled city of Russia and was the capital of the Russian Empire for more than 200 years (1713-1728, 1792-1918).

Россия

Here's a really neat cover from Russia that I received from a fellow postcrosser. The cover is very heart-warming and the snow just brings back memories of when I was younger and went to Big Bear Mountain to play in the snow....

The three stamps are also very interesting. The first to the left depicts an aircraft whose brand and model curiously don't appear on the stamp. It was issued in 2006. The one in the middle, issued in 2007, shows equestrian sports and reads "Donskaja Poroda." The last one on the right is quite festive and depicts a tree in the snow. It reads "S Novim Godom! / Happy New Year!" and was issued in 2007.

Unfortunately, that's all the info I could get on the stamps; couldn't find any place on the internet that discusses Russian stamps! Is there one?

The stamps were postmarked on 07 Feb 2008.