Canadian Pride - Flag of Canada, Canada

After almost a year, here is a new post for the Sunday Stamps edition, which seems to have gone back to themes after the alphabetic posts :)

Today's theme is Water - and even though the primary topic of this issue is the Canadian flag, there is pretty much water on the sheet, to make it eligible for today :)

In this set, issued 14th of January, 2013, the designer Karen Smith said that they tried to represent as many different regions of Canada as possible as well as different seasons. There are images from the prairies, inland, and the coast, as well as summer, fall and winter, where the Canadian flag is shown in abstract, unusual ways.


The set of five stamps features essentially Canadian scenes with the flag uniquely displayed. In one, three Muskoka chairs lounge on a dock facing a lake in early fall, evoking Canadian cottages from coast to coast. The chairs reappear on the souvenir sheet, this time with the puffy, whimsical clouds of summer dotting the sky. The fall colours are recalled by the golden hue of a very Canadian hay bale that waits in a prairie field at harvest time. On the East Coast, just outside Halifax, a spinnaker fills with a summer breeze representing the Canadian sails and flags that fill the waterways each season. This same spinnaker is shown again on the OFDC, this time with an iconic East Coast lighthouse in the background.
During Canada Day celebrations in Winnipeg more than 3,000 patriotic Canadians gather on the lawn of the provincial legislature to form a living flag, challenging a record held by Victoria, British Columbia.
Finally, a lone fishing hut brings a splash of colour on a clear day to a frozen Lake Scugog, Ontario.

So, dear Canadians, do you find pride in your flag? Or your maple syrup? Or is it something else? Feel free to share your thoughts, im curious to know :)

Seeing those chairs... not really fitting into the social distancing concept nowadays, eh?

For more calming water stamps, visit today's Sunday Stamps edition

The 10th Anniversary of the "Baltic Chain", Estonia

The days between Sunday Stamps seem to pass really quickly, so here we are at the second episode of the third season of the A-Z game.

I seem to have quite a lot of B-related stamps, so it was a tough choice, but the final decision fell on this joint issue among Estonia-Lithuanua-Latvia, from 1999, commemorating the 10th Anniversary of the Baltic Chain.  On the cover her is the Estonian mini-sheet.

The Baltic Chain (or the Baltic Way) was an uninterrupted 675.5 kilometre human chain uniting the Baltic capitals of Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, in which two million indigenous people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then still occupied by the Soviet Union, joined hands to demand freedom and independence.
It was organised by the joint efforts of the three Baltic countries’ Popular Fronts on the 50th anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet pact of 23 August 1939, which served as a basis for the Soviet Union to occupy the Baltic countries in 1940. The aim of the Baltic Chain was to draw the world’s attention to continuing Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries and emphasised the non-violent nature of the Baltic nations’ struggle for freedom.

675.5 kilmetres... that is so hard to grasp, leaves me in awe at the thought of it and how it had looked in reality.


For more B-related posts, simply click here.

Macedonia in EU, Macedonia

Hello my dear readers and Sunday-stampers...hm, ok, maybe not the right use of the word, but to me it seemed as a nice sort of neologism...

the theme for this Sunday is public architecture, esp. bridges....so i stuck to that, instead actually interpreting the theme broadly...and i was about to go with those Russian bridges' stamps...but then i thought I could actually contribute with something different with which i have much less of a chance to overlap and have a double post with someone else, since I dont think that many today would go with something Macedonian...and Ill leave the Russian ones for some other time :)

well, I have two FDCs for today which I think fit in well into the theme, even though their initial subject is something totally different.
Each year, the Macedonian postal service issues stamps dedicated to the European Union...I dont know why it is called Macedonian in EU, when we still arent an EU member state (frankly I dont even want to be part of EU, but it is not like anyone is asking me or the public, those things are already settled behind the scenes about when and how are they going to happen).
Anyways, as I said, these stamps are issued each year, when some capital of the EU is presented on those stamps. In 2009, as you can see above, it was Prague (Czech Republic) that was chosen, and here you can see among else the very famous Charles' bridge in Prague, over the Vltava river.
Its construction started in 1357 under the auspices of King Charles IV, and finished in the beginning of the 15th century. As the only means of crossing the river Vltava until 1841, the Charles Bridge was the most important connection between Prague Castle and the city's Old Town and adjacent areas (you can also see those on the FDC).

Unfortunately I havent yet been to Prague, though Id really love to...and feel the bustling atmosphere of this place.

this second FDC was issued in 2011 and here you can see Budapest...well Budapest is famous for its numerous bridges over the Danube river but the Chain bridge is probably the most famous and widely known among the bridges of Budapest (and I must say that Ive actually been here and crossed this bridge! And Budapest is a beautiful place....though Id need to go there again coz that was like 10 years ago, so Im sure Id see Budapest with different eyes nowadays than back then).
The Chain bridge was the first permanent stone-bridge connecting Pest and Buda, and only the second permanent crossing on the whole length of the river Danube, opened in 1849. The portals are decorated with lionhead-shaped capstones and the coat of arms of Hungary with the crown and a wreath of leaves.
The bridge has the name of István Széchenyi attached to it actually, a major supporter of its construction, but is most commonly known as the Chain Bridge.
And on the stamp, you can also see the famous Hungarian Parliament building.

so, I hope you liked my pick for the day...to see what others have chosen, click on the button below...and have a great day :)

Flags of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia

Hello my fellow readers!
I was wondering if I'd ever get the chance to find an occasion to share these stamps with you and then dear host of Viridian's blog jumps in choosing that perfect topic!
So here we are, with the flags of my dear former Yugoslavia...the amazing country that had to crumble to pieces..and the country that many people feel nostalgic for, including me.
I won't deal with politics here, even though that's the main reason why everything went to hell...I just want to share with you these stamps and a small piece of where i used to live for the first 10/11 years of my life...yeah, im old actually :P

I have these awesome stamps thanks to Goran, who was so kind to send them to me....I absolutely love love love them! I know that there is nothing particular about their design maybe since they just portray flags, but to me they are special coz of the emotional bond we have.

the stamps depict the flags of all the 6 former Yugoslav republics, as well as the stamp of SFRJ (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), the country which existed from the end of WW2 until the beginning of the 1990's, when there was an outbreak of civil wars.

As you can notice, most of the flags are based on the three stripes principle, except for the Macedonian one, but they certainly include the five-pointed star fringed with a golden line, which represents the symbol of the state-economic system of the Federation - the socialism as well as the aspiration to achieve its highest level, the communism.
You can see the Yugoslav flag at the bottom line, shown on both the left and the middle stamp, where on the first one the name of the country is depicted in Latin while on the middle one, in Cyrillic letters, since both of the alphabets were used in the country. The flag of Yugoslavia was adopted on 31 January 1946, and it consists of three parallel lines, where the order is blue, white, red. It is based on the previous Pan-Slavic one, whose basis is identical. The three lines represent the nature of Yugoslavia as a Community or according to the version i like more, the blue colour represents the Adriatic sea, the white one - the freedom and the sky and the red one represents the blood shed during the wars.

Then, starting from the top, first you have the flag of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, while next to it is the one of Socialist Republic of Macedonia, the only one not following the 3 stripes principle. Macedonia got its independence on September 8 1991
In the middle you have the flags of SR Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Slovenia, while at the bottom, apart from the SFRJ flags I had already mentioned, you also have the flag of SR Croatia.

All stamps have face value of 2,50 dinars (the currency of SFRJ), and were issued in 1980. The year when Josip Broz Tito died and which was the starting point for the breaking up of the country.

For more flags and patriotic stamps from around the world, click on the image below...and have a great Sunday :)

Admission to the United Nations, Mongolia

So this week's theme at Sunday Stamps is Mainland Asia...so I guess this fits in the criterion?

I really wasnt sure what to post, and in order to spare you from more trains,  I went for this set of 5 Mongolian stamps issued in 1962 which commemorate Mongolia's admission to UN.
The stamps are diamond shape and their face value is 10, 30, 50, 60 and 70 мөнгө, where the middle bottom stamps represents the UN Headquarters and the Great National Hural of the Mongolian Peoples Republic.

Mongolia became a member of the United Nations on 27 October 1961.

Being rather old and from a country as Mongolia, I consider these as rather rare stamps...to which I have to thank my dear mum :)

For more Asian stamps, click the big button below

Happy Sunday All!

Mercosur, Bolivia

My one and so far only one cover from Bolivia sent back in 1998.

I sometimes wonder if any of these people who had sent me letters and postcards and with whom i had totally lost touch, if maybe they had ever accidentally come across my blogs and maybe recognized themselves in some of my posts....
The Mercosur stamp is of a value of 3.00 Bs and was issued in 1997.
Mercosur (Southern Common Market) is a Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) among& Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay founded in 1991 by the Treaty of Asunción, which was later amended and updated by the 1994 Treaty of Ouro Preto. Its purpose is to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people, and currency.
Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have an associate member status. The four *shining starts* represent each of the main member states.