Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Gibbons lists them as 'Tourist Publicity', which raises a number of intriguing lines of enquiry, such as 'which tourists exactly', or 'was there even a tourist infrastructure at these specific places', leading on to 'if not, what exactly is going in here'?
Most countries seek to celebrate their varied scenery, usually (at least on stamps) for purposes of generating wealth via tourism. Here it's possible that the USSR is establishing a 'mental geography' for its own population, by way of re-imagining a positive image of Mother Russia. Does that fit in with the spirit of the times? What do you think?
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Russian people weren't really allowed to travel without express permission of the government, and then they were restricted as to where they could go, unless it was a one-was trip to a Siberian Gulag. Probably these and other Russian stamps acted as propaganda for outside of Russia. The CTO stamp industry brought in much needed hard currency.
"See? We are a beautiful country!" Not sure how many foreign tourists went to Russia, but it a nice set never-the-less.
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You may want to research the history of Intourist, the state tourism agency founded in 1929. It was a huge organization and still exists today.
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Hi Everyone;
Thanks for posting those Ian. I have a few stamps that are similar but are street scenes and
have the same nice engraved printing as these.
Some of my favorite Russians are the ice breakers and the series of medals.
Just chillin'....
TuskenRaider
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Two more things occur to me: firstly the colours chosen for each stamp seem to complement each other especially well.
Secondly, the question of what constitutes a design. In my thread in the 'Great Britain' section a couple of weeks back, 'Ningpo' made this point:
"Printing a cropped photograph onto a stamp is not design. This is just lazy, low outlay label printing, just to reel in the collectors who buy any new GB issues regardless of theme."
I am assuming the engravers (four of them were used on this set) were given photographs from which to work, but are the stamps 'designed' by Ningpo's definition?
The management line may have gone something like this:
1. The choice of general subject: 'Tourism issue' (Minister of Communications N.D.Psurtsev, or a select committee from his office)
2. The choice of specific location (ditto? or next stage down?)
3. The choice of printing style and format (Goznak Head Artist I.I.Dubasov)
4. The choice of designer (ditto)
5. The choice of engravers (ditto, or Designer S.A.Pomansky)
6. The choice of colour scheme (Pomansky, together with or independent of Dubasov, but probably not the engravers)
7. The photograph cropping, if any (engravers, or Pomansky/Dubasov)
8. The finished stamp (engravers)
9. All the way back up the line for approval.
I assume that the line management was strictly controlled and formalised, and would have been the same for any issue. But how close will we ever get to what actually happened?
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The Russian stamps remind me of the U.S. National Parks issue of 1934, which were no doubt based on photographs. If we consider photography an art, and I certainly do, I fail to see how replicating a photograph, especially in a recess-engraved stamp, can be a bad thing.
Bob
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Thanks for that, Nelson.
Better scans than I was able to manage, and some identification of each locality. Now I'm off to check out Intourist (though not for an actual holiday!)
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Ian- My Zagorsky catalog lists the 1959 issue as Landscapes of the USSR issued between December 15-30, 1959. Private email sent.
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Jansimon, here is an extract from Intourist's website:
"In 1956 about half a million foreign citizens from 84 countries — 5 times more than during the pre-war decade — visited the Soviet Union. And more than one million Soviet people went abroad in the same year.
In 1964 the number of foreign tourists visiting the USSR exceeded 1 million people, and more than 900 thousand Soviet citizens travelled abroad. Intourist did its best to make it possible for ordinary citizens of our country to travel abroad and to increase their travel options. The activities of Intourist promoted the establishment of warmer human relations among nations."
Call me a bourgeois counter-revolutionary whiteguardist, but I feel the concepts 'foreign' and 'Eastern Europe' are broadly identical in this context. Still, the word had to be spread and these stamps cannot have done the Soviet image any harm in Bucharest or Sofia.
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I took delivery today of a substantial number of recess-printed USSR stamps (one of the by-products of looking into Soviet post-war stamp production). I found these, from 1959, particularly attractive:
Gibbons lists them as 'Tourist Publicity', which raises a number of intriguing lines of enquiry, such as 'which tourists exactly', or 'was there even a tourist infrastructure at these specific places', leading on to 'if not, what exactly is going in here'?
Most countries seek to celebrate their varied scenery, usually (at least on stamps) for purposes of generating wealth via tourism. Here it's possible that the USSR is establishing a 'mental geography' for its own population, by way of re-imagining a positive image of Mother Russia. Does that fit in with the spirit of the times? What do you think?
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10:02:11pm
re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
Russian people weren't really allowed to travel without express permission of the government, and then they were restricted as to where they could go, unless it was a one-was trip to a Siberian Gulag. Probably these and other Russian stamps acted as propaganda for outside of Russia. The CTO stamp industry brought in much needed hard currency.
"See? We are a beautiful country!" Not sure how many foreign tourists went to Russia, but it a nice set never-the-less.
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re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
You may want to research the history of Intourist, the state tourism agency founded in 1929. It was a huge organization and still exists today.
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re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
Hi Everyone;
Thanks for posting those Ian. I have a few stamps that are similar but are street scenes and
have the same nice engraved printing as these.
Some of my favorite Russians are the ice breakers and the series of medals.
Just chillin'....
TuskenRaider
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this post
re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
Two more things occur to me: firstly the colours chosen for each stamp seem to complement each other especially well.
Secondly, the question of what constitutes a design. In my thread in the 'Great Britain' section a couple of weeks back, 'Ningpo' made this point:
"Printing a cropped photograph onto a stamp is not design. This is just lazy, low outlay label printing, just to reel in the collectors who buy any new GB issues regardless of theme."
I am assuming the engravers (four of them were used on this set) were given photographs from which to work, but are the stamps 'designed' by Ningpo's definition?
The management line may have gone something like this:
1. The choice of general subject: 'Tourism issue' (Minister of Communications N.D.Psurtsev, or a select committee from his office)
2. The choice of specific location (ditto? or next stage down?)
3. The choice of printing style and format (Goznak Head Artist I.I.Dubasov)
4. The choice of designer (ditto)
5. The choice of engravers (ditto, or Designer S.A.Pomansky)
6. The choice of colour scheme (Pomansky, together with or independent of Dubasov, but probably not the engravers)
7. The photograph cropping, if any (engravers, or Pomansky/Dubasov)
8. The finished stamp (engravers)
9. All the way back up the line for approval.
I assume that the line management was strictly controlled and formalised, and would have been the same for any issue. But how close will we ever get to what actually happened?
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re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
The Russian stamps remind me of the U.S. National Parks issue of 1934, which were no doubt based on photographs. If we consider photography an art, and I certainly do, I fail to see how replicating a photograph, especially in a recess-engraved stamp, can be a bad thing.
Bob
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re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
Thanks for that, Nelson.
Better scans than I was able to manage, and some identification of each locality. Now I'm off to check out Intourist (though not for an actual holiday!)
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re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
Ian- My Zagorsky catalog lists the 1959 issue as Landscapes of the USSR issued between December 15-30, 1959. Private email sent.
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re: Here are some pleasant views of Mother Russia
Jansimon, here is an extract from Intourist's website:
"In 1956 about half a million foreign citizens from 84 countries — 5 times more than during the pre-war decade — visited the Soviet Union. And more than one million Soviet people went abroad in the same year.
In 1964 the number of foreign tourists visiting the USSR exceeded 1 million people, and more than 900 thousand Soviet citizens travelled abroad. Intourist did its best to make it possible for ordinary citizens of our country to travel abroad and to increase their travel options. The activities of Intourist promoted the establishment of warmer human relations among nations."
Call me a bourgeois counter-revolutionary whiteguardist, but I feel the concepts 'foreign' and 'Eastern Europe' are broadly identical in this context. Still, the word had to be spread and these stamps cannot have done the Soviet image any harm in Bucharest or Sofia.
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