{"id":88844,"date":"2024-12-25T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-12-25T01:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/25\/ukraines-stamps-put-humour-patriotism-and-swearing-in-the-post\/"},"modified":"2024-12-25T01:00:12","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T01:00:12","slug":"ukraines-stamps-put-humour-patriotism-and-swearing-in-the-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/25\/ukraines-stamps-put-humour-patriotism-and-swearing-in-the-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s stamps put humour, patriotism and swearing in the post"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"MYKOLAMYKOLA TYS\/EPA-EFE\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The head of Ukraine’s postal company, Ukrposhta, says they’re “breaking the rules” with their war stamps<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Rude gestures are rare on postage stamps, but Ukraine’s best known stamp has one. It shows a soldier raising the middle finger to a Russian warship in reference to a stand-off at Snake Island on day one of the full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.<\/p>\n

The Russians demanded surrender but the Ukrainians refused, using unprintable language.<\/p>\n

The warship in question, the cruiser Moskva, was sunk by the Ukrainians two days after the stamp was issued, and it sold out within a week of going on sale.<\/p>\n

Such is the significance of the stamp that whatever was left was given to government delegations<\/a> representing Ukraine on the world stage.<\/p>\n

Ihor Smilyansky, the head of Ukraine’s postal company Ukrposhta, acknowledges it was a risqu\u00e9 step to take.<\/p>\n

“It was my decision. I said – I don’t care whatever everyone else thinks. I just believe it’s the right thing to do,” he told the BBC. “I know it’s breaking all the philatelic [study of stamps] rules and all the rules. But we’re about breaking the rules.”<\/p>\n

Ukrposhta often tests its designs on the public, and the results of such online polls tend to be very political too.<\/p>\n

That was how Ukraine’s best-selling stamp came into being, showing a Ukrainian tractor towing a captured Russian tank and featuring the popular wartime greeting: “Good evening, we’re from Ukraine.”<\/p>\n

Ukrposhta has sold about eight million such stamps.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Good evening, we’re from Ukraine” is the country’s best-selling stamp<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Stamps featuring Ukraine’s famous mine-sniffing dog Patron<\/a> earned Ukrposhta about $500,000 (\u00a3400,000): 80% of the money was spent on mine-clearing equipment, and the rest on animal shelters.<\/p>\n

Another stamp of a mural left by renowned graffiti artist Banksy<\/a> on a building devastated by shelling outside Kyiv, helped fund 10 bomb shelters. This stamp features another popular but unprintable Ukrainian slogan – this time directed against Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"GettyGetty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Stamps featuring Patron the mine-sniffing dog helped buy a mine-clearing machine<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Ihor Smilyansky says a dose of humour is added to Ukrposhta’s stamps to maintain Ukrainian morale during the war with Russia.<\/p>\n

“Humour has become a fighting force for Ukrainians in this war,” he tells the BBC. “Even in the most difficult circumstances you have to take it with a sense of humour. And that’s what our stamps are sometimes about.”<\/p>\n

Oscar Young from UK-based stamp dealers and auctioneers Stanley Gibbons says Ukraine’s approach to stamps by focusing them on the war is highly unusual.<\/p>\n

“Generally stamps are artistic and polite, but to go out your way and be quite rude, placing profanity and being very gesturous on stamps – that is quite unique to these particular issues,” he tells the BBC.<\/p>\n

He says the frank image used on the warship stamp is what made the stamp so famous and caused such a stir when it was issued.<\/p>\n

The distinctive character of Ukrainian stamps has earned them popularity with collectors worldwide.<\/p>\n

Laura Bullivant from Gloucester, in the UK, believes that other stamps look bland by comparison.<\/p>\n

“I think they’re like the Ukrainian thought process, they’re just strong, and they’re just not bowing down to whatever’s coming into their country,” she says. <\/p>\n

“At a time of huge worry and awfulness, they are bringing something to the game that no other country could.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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MYKOLA TYS\/EPA-EFE\/REX\/Shutterstock The head of Ukraine’s postal company, Ukrposhta, says they’re “breaking the rules” with their war stamps Rude gestures are rare on postage stamps,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neclink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}