#1176 Estonia - China - Indonesia - Russia

Thank you all !

Sent from Estonia to China: July 25, 2016

Received from Russia: October 18, 2016

#1155 Estonia - Poland - New Zealand - Macau - Hong Kong

Thank you !

Sent from Estonia to Poland: August 1, 2016

From Poland to New Zealand: ??

From New Zealand to Macau: ??

From Macau to Hong Kong: September 5, 2016

From Hong Kong to Estonia: September 13, 2016

Received from Hong Kong: September 20, 2016

#657 Vilnius, Lithuania

More information about Lithuania, see received postcards #613 and #136.

Date of Issue: January 18, 2014 - Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games

Thank you, Ilona !

Her blog: http://ilona-stampsoftraditionalfolkcostumes.blogspot.com/

Sent on: June 9, 2014

Received on: June 13, 2014

#655 Vilnius, Lithuania

Date of Issue: January 18, 2014 - Sochi 2014 Olympic Games

Thank you, Ilona !

Sent on: June 9, 2014

Received on: June 11, 2014

#632 Moscow, Russia

Novodevichy Convent, also known as Bogoroditse-Smolensky Monastery (Russian: Новоде́вичий монасты́рь, Богоро́дице-Смоле́нский монасты́рь), is probably the best-known cloister of Moscow. Its name, sometimes translated as the New Maidens' Monastery, was devised to differ from an ancient maidens' convent within the Moscow Kremlin. Unlike other Moscow cloisters, it has remained virtually intact since the 17th century. In 2004, it was proclaimed a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Novodevichy Convent was founded in 1524 by Grand Prince Vasili III in commemoration of the conquest of Smolensk in 1514. It was built as a fortress at a curve of the Moskva River and became an important part of the southern defensive belt of the capital, which had already included a number of other monasteries. Upon its founding, the Novodevichy Convent was granted 3,000 rubles and the villages of Akhabinevo and Troparevo. Ivan the Terrible would later grant a number of other villages to the convent.

The Novodevichy Convent was known to have sheltered many ladies from the Russian royal families and boyar clans, who had been forced to take the veil, such as Feodor I's wife Irina Godunova (she was there with her brother Boris Godunov until he became a ruler himself), Sophia Alekseyevna (Peter the Great's sister), Eudoxia Lopukhina (Peter the Great's first wife), and others. In 1610–1611, the Novodevichy Convent was captured by a Polish unit under the command of Aleksander Gosiewski. Once the convent was retaken by Russian forces, the tsar supplied it with permanent guards (100 Streltsy in 1616, 350 soldiers in 1618). By the end of the 17th century, the Novodevichy Convent possessed 36 villages (164,215 desyatinas of land) in 27 uyezds of Russia. In 1744, it owned 14,489 peasants.

In the mid-17th century, nuns from other monasteries in the Ukrainian and Belarusian were transferred to Novodevichy Convent. In 1721, some of the aged nuns, who renounced the Old Believers movement, were given shelter. In 1724, the convent also housed a military hospital for the soldiers and officers of the Imperial Russian Army and an orphanage for female foundlings. By 1763, the convent housed 84 nuns, 35 lay sisters, and 78 sick patients and servants. Each year, the state provided the Novodevichy Convent with 1,500 rubles, 1,300 quarters of bread, and 680 rubles and 480 quarters of bread for more than 250 abandoned children.

In 1812, Napoleon's army made an attempt to blow up the convent, but the nuns managed to save the cloister from destruction. In Tolstoy's War and Peace, Pierre was to be executed under the convent walls. In another novel of his, Anna Karenina, Konstantin Lyovin (the main character) meets his future wife Kitty ice-skating near monastery walls. Indeed, the Maiden's Field (as a meadow in front of the convent came to be known) was the most popular skating-rink in 19th-century Moscow. Tolstoy himself enjoyed skating here, when he lived nearby, in the district of Khamovniki.

In 1871, the Filatyev brothers donated money for a shelter-school for the orphans of "ignoble origins". Also, the convent housed two almshouses for nuns and lay sisters. In early 1900s, the Cathedral was surveyed and restored by architect and preservationist Ivan Mashkov. By 1917, there were 51 nuns and 53 lay sisters residing in the Novodevichy Convent.

In 1922, the Bolsheviks closed down the Novodevichy Convent (the cathedral was the last to be closed, in 1929) and turned it into the Museum of Women's Emancipation. By 1926, the monastery had been transformed into a history and art museum. In 1934, it became affiliated with the State Historical Museum. Most of its facilities were turned into apartments, which spared the convent from destruction.

In 1943, when Stalin started to make advances to the Russian Orthodox Church during World War II, he sanctioned opening the Moscow Theological Courses at the convent. Next year the program was transformed and became the Moscow Theological Institute. In 1945, the Soviets returned Assumption Cathedral to the believers. The residence of the Metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomna has been located in the Novodevichy Convent since 1980.

In 1994, nuns returned to the convent, which is currently under the authority of the Metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomna. Some of the churches and other monastic buildings are still affiliated with the State Historical Museum. In 1995, religious resumed services in the convent on patron saint's days.

Wikipedia.org

Property No #1097

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 2004

Thank you, Tanya !

Sent on: May 15, 2014

Received on: June 3, 2014

#556 Yenişehir, Turkey

The Kocatepe Mosque is the largest mosque in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. It was built between 1967 and 1987 in the Kocatepe quarter in Kızılay, and its size and prominent situation have made it a landmark that can be seen from almost anywhere in central Ankara.

The idea of building the Kocatepe Mosque dates back to the 1940s. On December 8, 1944, Ahmet Hamdi Akseki, the Vice-President of Turkish Religious Affairs, along with seventy-two founding members, established a society known as the "Society to Build a Mosque in Yenişehir, Ankara." In 1947 this society called for projects to be drawn up by architects, but none of the submitted projects were accepted.

In 1956, through the efforts of the late Adnan Menderes, Prime Minister of the time, land was allocated for the project to build a mosque in Ankara, and a request for projects was made once again in 1957. This time thirty-six projects were evaluated, with the joint project of Vedat Dalokay and Nejat Tekelioğlu being chosen as the one to be implemented.

The accepted project was an innovative and modern design. The construction started, but due to heavy critique from conservatives for its modernist look, the construction was stopped at the foundation level. Vedat Dalokay later built a modified version of the Kocatepe Mosque after winning an international competition for the Shah Faisal Masjid in Islamabad, Pakistan in 1969. This mosque, which can accommodate 24,000 worshippers, is one of the largest mosques of the world, and accepted by many as the frontiers of modern Islamic architecture.

After a third architectural competition in 1967, a more conservative or nostalgic design by Hüsrev Tayla and M. Fatin Uluengin was chosen to be built. Completed in 1987, this project is built in a neo-classical Ottoman architecture style, and is an eclectic building inspired by the Selimiye mosque in Edirne, and the Sehzade and Sultan Ahmet mosques in Istanbul.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Muammer !

Sent on: March 24, 2014

Received on: April 3, 2014

#526 Moscow, Russia

More about Russia see received card #486.

Thank you, Ksenia !

Sent on: February 21, 2014

Received on: March 11, 2014

#524 Osijek, Croatia

Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 108,048 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja County. Osijek is located on the right bank of the river Drava, 25 kilometres (16 mi) upstream of its confluence with the Danube, at an elevation of 94 metres (308 ft).

Wikipedia.org

The Church of St Peter and St Paul (Croatian: Crkva svetog Petra i Pavla), the co-cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Đakovo-Osijek, is a neo-Gothic sacral structure located in Osijek, Croatia. The multi-tiered 90-metre spire is one of the city's landmarks. The church was built in 1898 on the initiative of the Bishop of Đakovo Josip Juraj Strossmayer.

The church is entered via a small door to the right of the main portal, overlooked by a trio of gargoyles. The interior is a treasure trove of neo-Gothic ornamentation, with a succession of pinnacled altars overlooked by exuberant stained glass windows. The interior was finished off in 1938–1942 when leading Croatian painter Mirko Rački covered the walls and ceilings with brightly coloured frescoes illustrating famous episodes from the Old and New Testaments.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Alen !

Sent on: March 3, 2014

Received on: March 10, 2014

#503 Brno, Czech Republic

The national flag of the Czech Republic (Czech: státní vlajka České republiky) is the same as the flag of the former Czechoslovakia. Upon the dissolution of Czechoslovakia the Czech Republic kept the Czechoslovak flag while the Slovak Republic adopted its own flag. The first flag of Czechoslovakia was based on the arms, and was white over red. This was identical to the Flag of Poland, so a blue triangle was added at the hoist. The flag was banned by the Nazis in 1939, and a horizontal tricolor of white, red, and blue was enforced. The original flag was restored in 1945.

When the Czech and Slovak Republics separated in 1993, the Czechs adopted a flag identical to the former flag of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, in direct violation of the constitutional act that explicitly forbids former federal symbols to be used by the two successor states.

Wikipedia.org

Thank you, Lucie !

Sent on: February 18, 2014

Received on: February 25, 2014

#502 Russia

Lake Baikal (Russian: о́зеро Байка́л, tr. Ozero Baykal; Buryat: Байгал нуур, Mongolian: Байгал нуур, Baygal nuur, meaning "nature lake") is a rift lake in the south of the Russian region of Siberia, between the Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast.

Lake Baikal is the most voluminous freshwater lake in the world, containing roughly 20% of the world's unfrozen surface fresh water and at 1,642 m (5,387 ft), the deepest. It is also among the clearest of all lakes, and thought to be the world's oldest lake at 25 million years. It is the 7th largest lake in the world by surface area.

Like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km² (12,248 sq mi). Baikal is home to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals, two thirds of which can be found nowhere else in the world and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. It is also home to Buryat tribes who reside on the eastern side of Lake Baikal, rearing goats, camels, cattle and sheep, where the regional average temperatures vary from a minimum of −19 °C (−2 °F) in winter to maximum of 14 °C (57 °F) in summer.
Wikipedia.org

Property No #754

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 1996

Thank you, Maria !

Sent on: February 13, 2014

Received on: February 25, 2014

#501 Russia

Tsivilsk The Virgin of Tikhvin Monastery Cathedral of Our Lady of Tikhvin.

Thank you, Maria !

Sent on: February 13, 2014

Received on: February 25, 2014

#496 Krakow, Poland

Poland (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast (a Russian exclave) and Lithuania to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the sixth most populous member of the European Union, and the most populous post-communist member of the European Union. Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions.

Wikipedia.org

Date of Issue: 2014 - Olympic Games Sochi 2014

Thank you, Lukasz !

Sent on: February 14, 2014

Received on: February 17, 2014

#486 Moscow, Russia | RU-2380604

Russia (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya), is a country situated in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both with Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the world's ninth most populous nation with 143 million people as of 2012. Extending across the entirety of northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans nine time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms.

Wikipedia.org

The flag of the Russian Federation is a tricolor flag consisting of three equal horizontal fields; white on the top, blue in the middle and red on the bottom.

The flag was first used as an ensign for Russian merchant ships and only became official in 1896. The flag continued to be used by the Russian Provisional Government after the Tsar was toppled in the February Revolution and was not replaced until the October Revolution which established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic - the world's first constitutionally socialist state. From that time period, a 1:2 red flag featuring the abbreviated name "RSFSR" ("РСФСР") was used, until replaced in 1954 with the universal design of the Soviet flag with a blue stripe along the mast. It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the tricolor was brought back as the official flag of the new Russian Federation. The modern era flag underwent a proportion change in 1993 and has been official since 2000.

There is no official meaning assigned to the colors of the flag. Many Russians associate white with nobility, blue with honesty, and red with courage or love.

Wikipedia.org

Date of Issue: June 20, 2006 - Regions

Date of Issue: November 29, 2013 - Sochi 2014 "Happy New Year !"

Thank you, Anna (nekarenina) !

Received on: February 4, 2014

Travel time: 10 days

Distance: 805 km (500 miles)

#298 Moscow, Russia | RU-1928089

The Cathedral of Saint Demetrius (Russian Дмитриевский собор) is a cathedral in the ancient Russian city of Vladimir. It was finished in 1191 during the reign of the Grand Prince Vsevolod the Big Nest of Vladimir-Suzdal to the honour of Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki.

The cathedral is one-domed and four-pillared. Originally it was surrounded by galleries with towers that connected it to the prince's palace. They were demolished during the restoration in the 19th century. The church is famous for its white-stone carvings - its walls are decorated with ca. 600 reliefs, depicting saints, mythical and real animals. Most of the reliefs are preserved in their original form, some have been replaced during the restoration of the 19th century. Out of the internal decoration a few fragments of frescoes of the 12th century have survived, particularly fragments of the Last Judgement composition.

 Wikipedia.org 

Property No #633

It's in the list of UNESCO as a part of White Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal.

Date of Inscription on the List of UNESCO WHS: 1992

Date of Issue: October 19, 2012 - Winter Olympic Sports.

Thank you, Christina (Kolesnikova) !

Received on: August 26, 2013
Travel time: 12 days
Distance: 768 km (477 miles)

#142 Samara, Russia | RU-1054678

Alexander Gardens (Russian: Александровский сад) was one of the first urban public parks in Moscow, Russia. The park comprises three separate gardens, which stretch along all the length of the western Kremlin wall for 865 metres (2,838 ft) between the building of the Moscow Manege and the Kremlin.

Wikipedia.org

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Могила Неизвестного Солдата in Russian, or Mogila Neizvestnova Soldata) is a war memorial, dedicated to the Soviet soldiers killed during World War II. It is located at the Kremlin Wall in the Alexander Garden in Moscow.

The remains of the unknown soldiers killed in the Battle of Moscow in 1941 were initially buried in a mass grave at the 41st km of the Leningrad highway at the city of Zelenograd. This was the location of the closest approach of the Nazi armies to Moscow during the war. To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the battle, in December 1966 these remains were relocated to the Kremlin Wall.

Wikipedia.org

Date of Issue: October 21, 2011 - Sochi 2014 "Russian Black Sea Coast Tourism"

Thank you, Tanya (dreama) !

Received on: October 18, 2012

Travel time: 115 days

Distance: 10 261 km (6,376 miles)

It arrived to USA after I was gone, fortunately my host family forwarded it to me.