A Siberian Library Postcard.

Currently I experience a slight shift in my field of interest putting a stronger emphasis on the so called deltiological phenomena: postcards. I still like and enjoy all the stamps and nobody would seriously outdo philatelic to deltiologic items. Both types carry a special incomparable value: Stamps are much smaller and therefore graphical condensed and officially controlled expressions of how a society wishes to be represented on a piece of paper used for a highly limited function.
Postcards however serve a broader field of possible utilizations. There is certainly a much larger variety of postcards than of stamps.

Personally I prefer postcards to display not much more than an ordinary photography. Those cards still embed a certain way of representation, but there is a higher rate of arbitrariness, which relates those objects much closer with the ordinary cultural framework they are used in.

Today’s example shows the building of the Государственная публичная научно-техническая библиотека – the State Public Scientific Technical Library of the Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences located right in the centre of Novosibirsk. The postcard was issued by the probably leading soviet postcard publisher Планета (Planeta) in 1971 – ten years after the construction of the building began and five years after the official opening. I can’t tell much about the library and its 10 reading rooms except that it still plays an important role for Russian science being connected with a number of other scientific libraries all over the world. And it is said to be the largest library in Asia with more than 14 million items. More information can be found on the corresponding website.

For this post I just want to preserve the object itself displaying a good exemple of the up-to-date heavy weight library architecture of the early 1960s, with an quite interesting entrance stairway, a tiled façade with huge windows, its slightly overgrown forecourt, and a darkblue, probably 1968 built Moskvitch 412 with the license plate number 25-75 нсн passing by. Some people walk around in summer dresses when photographer Б. Подгорного (B. Podgornogo) captured the scenery from a south-western angle probably around midday.

Nowosibirsk - Library

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The Pashkov House, on stamp

So here is another library related stamp – this time from Russia. The definitive features Дом Пашкова of the Russian State Library (Российская государственная библиотека) in Moscow, which is said to be the most beautiful building in the whole city. The postage stamp is one of fifteen from the 1992 to 1995 issued series “Monuments”. The shown one was issued 1995 an is numbered as 6122 by Scott resp. 418 by Michel Catalogue. 

 

The Russian State Library was founded in 1862 as Russias first public library. It is located near the Kremlin in the very center of Moscow. The pictured building “Dom Pashkov” however is older. Is was build from 1784 to 1787 by order of Pjotr Pashkov by the architect Vassily Bazhenov. It was heavily damaged by the big fire of 1812 and rather “decently” reconstructed until it was bought by the state in 1839. After that it was reconstructed more “costly” and became in 1862 the first public museum of Moscow (Rumiantsev Museum).  From 1925 it was the home of the Lenin Library, which was renamed in 1992 to its current name. Since 2003 it is – again – in reconstruction which will last approx. till 2008 (more on this can be found here (in Russian)).  The face value of the olive green stamp was 750 Ruble. As there was a rebasement of the Russion currency in 1998 I’m not sure whether it is still valid. It would however take some of them to stamp a letter i.e. to Western Europe. The stamp is a really plain and simple one and it’s exactly that fact which makes it to one of my favorites.