Beach Life

Its summer so lets go to the beach.  Every space of this beach is filled with activity and the artist calls it "Resort 'Energetik'".  I keep smiling at all the little stories going on although I have never seen anyone frying eggs on a beach before, however if you are lucky enough to have a beach hut it is always a possibility. The artist is Angela Djerih who comes from Donetsk but the card came from Ukraine's neighbour Belarus and Natalya who says she lives in one of the beautiful cities of that country, Minsk.

The card came with

one of the 'Architectural Monuments' definitives.  This shows the Church Fortress in Muravanka. I'd never heard of church fortresses before but I learn that there are lot of them in middle and eastern Europe and as the name implies were built both as a church and also a retreat and defensive position for the local population.  As can be seen on the stamp they consist of defensive towers and curtain walls;  no wonder Belarus was called the 'Land of Castles' in the middle ages.

The Church Fortress in Muravanka has certainly had a turbulent history.  Described as Belarusian Gothic with renaissance elements it was built in 1524 and damaged in the Russian-Poland war (middle of the 17th Century) and reconstructed only to be shelled and ruined in 1706.  At the beginning of the 19th Century it was restored and reconstructed.  Described as one of the seven wonders of the Schuchin district I believe it is being restored once again in the hopes it will be given UNESCO recognition.  

    

Pond

Pond (1912) by Stanislav Zhukovsky

The postal service have decided to add an other mark to this card by putting it through their rubbing machine. Do they have a special machine to randomly mark cards?  Feckless.  Perhaps I should get out my brushes and colour in the water and reflection except I don't have the talent of the impressionist landscape artist Stanislav Zhukovsky (1875-1944).  He did not have a good time with the people in charge either as his fondness for lavish things made him suspect to the Bolsheviks so in 1923 he moved to Poland.  Maybe not the best of moves because during the German occupation of Poland in World War Two he was arrested by the Nazis and held in a transit camp at Pruszhow where he died in 1944.

Zhukovsky was born in Yendrikovtsy, Grodno Province of the then Russian Empire, now it is Belarus.   A collection of his "Russian Period" works are on display at the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus in Minsk. They had their own troubles with the Nazis as large parts of the collection were plundered and disappeared during WW2 however, as they put it, they have risen from the ashes and the present day collection continues to grow.  Apart from its little museum stamp the card came with

the 2013 History of  National Communication stamp.  The stamp features a dove symbolising the "elements of protection" and the other pieces featured in the design are philatelic items from the collection of Lev L. Kolosov . 

The stamp is one of series started in 2011 by the Communications Administrators, members of the RCC (Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communication), who signed an agreement on issuing postage stamps on a RCC theme. The stamps display the RCC emblem.   Its aim is to develop cultural, social and economic cooperation between states and to consolidate friendship between their people.  For the first issue in 2011 they celebrated the 20th Anniversary of the RCC, then in 2012 Belarus National Clothes. 

Romantic Belarus

Tanya from Belarus sent me this photo of one her grandmothers old postcards. She says these cards were sold in Russia and Belarus from 1920-25 and translates the message on the bottom which says "You are my happiness and joy"  What a wonderfully romantic card , I love the colouring of her red dress, his handkerchief and the roses accentuating the black and white.

The card came with

a stamp issued in December 2007 as part of the Agricultural Animals series. An attractively designed set, I like the thee elements and it is very different from the other stamps of Belarus designed by its artist Maria Plakhotnjuk.  Look at that neat cancel in the corner as well, part of a nice frank from the Belarus Post, well done Belpochta

Designer: Marija Plohotnjuk
Paper: chalky
Printing process: offset
Perforation: comb 13 1/2
Size of a stamp: 52 x 29,60 mm.
Size of a Miniature Sheet: 114 x 104 mm.
Miniature Sheet composition: 6 (2 x 3) stamps
Printing run: 42.000 stamps or 7.000 Miniature Sheets.
Michel catalogue numbers: 694-698.

Thank you Tanya for sharing your Grandmother's beautiful card.

The Family

A painting called "The Family" by Sergei Ivanov. Where are they going in the snow?  The young girl in blue with an angelic face leading the procession.  Wherever it is they are well wrapped up against the cold.  My sender, Kati, tells me they are a 19th Century family.  I have been unable to find a lot of information on the artist apart from his lifespan 1864-1910 and that his main subjects were the history of Russia, peasant life and the Russian Revolution of 1905. He was a member of a group of artists called the peredvizhniki, (the wanderers) who were realist painters portraying the life of Russians at that time, both the harshness and the beauty. "The Family" can be seen in The Russian Museum, St Petersburg , a place no doubt to find out more about the painting and Sergei Ivanov.  The postcard came with two

of the 2008 Belarus definitives of Garden Flowers. These the peony and the lily.

Thank you Kati for this beautiful postcard.