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Imagine standing on an island and a Russian guided missile cruiser shows up on your shore. The “Moskva”, flagship of the Russian Navy, is carrying 16 missiles with a crew of 510. The warship announces "Snake Island, I, Russian warship, repeat the offer: put down your arms and surrender, or you will be bombed. Have you understood me? Do you copy?" There is nowhere to run. Surrender? Of course, not an option. The Ukrainian border guard responds with a defiant "Russian warship, go f--k yourself."
- Written by: Mark Stelmacovich
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This study was initiated during 2013, and was circulated to society peers for vetting and feedback in October 2015. It elaborates on a genre of philately which is not as well-known as it should be. When Carpatho-Ukraine existed as a country, so very briefly in 1939 before being occupied by a neighbouring power, and then for most of 1945 before being absorbed into a neighbouring super-military, it produced stamps for 'its public'. These were a people who wanted their identity to be reflected in nationhood, though who had little choice but to bow to the dominance of others. Thus, and despite their locally produced stamps, some would argue that the nation of Carpatho-Ukraine was no more than a puppet of others, and so, not yet recognized by some philatelists who at the same time honour others with a similar history. It is a hope that this compilation will shed more light on the stamps that this small entity produced, and, as well, some of the history that these issues reflect. Know that there are many other Carpatho-Ukraine stamp texts, which this author learned from, that were completed by excellent members and friends of our UPNS!
Read more: Study Featuring 'Carpatho-Ukraine' Stamps and Mail
- Written by: Mark Stelmacovich
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This is a ‘voiced-over powerpoint’ presentation that is about 2½-hours. Each given slide is different in length as the result of content explanation.
Why the Need for these Provisionals? Primary reasons: a) inadequate supply of national issues due to lack of facilities; strategic USSR assets were ‘centralized’; thus, no modern and secure mint and print facilities in Ukraine; b) inadequate distribution network to all post offices; system had been Russia-centred for several decades; it now had to be reconfigured to Ukraine; Secondary reasons: c) the need to repatriate what had been a russified system; d) inflation-hyperinflation; at the very first minute of 02 January 1992, Ukrainian denomination was 8-to-1; but on 05 December 1993 it was 12,600-to-1, and by 09 December 1994 110,000-to-1. Yikes, and given this ‘trend’, there was a dramatic effect on the postal system and all of its ‘adjuncts’! However such variables, otherwise deleterious, resulted in an interestingly complex postage system and stamp production routine during this period.
Read more: Presentation: Ukrainian Provisionals 1992 to 1995 (Video)
- Written by: UPNS Admin
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The Ukrainian Museum in New York City is marking two significant chapters in Ukraine’s modern history – 25 years since its declaration of independence in 1991 and the approaching centennial of the liberation struggle and short-lived independence in the early 20th century – with two parallel exhibitions.
In Metal, On Paper: Coins, Banknotes, and Postage Stamps of Independent Ukraine, 1991-2016 is curated by Yuri Savchuk, Ph.D., senior research associate at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Museum organized this exhibition in partnership with the National Bank of Ukraine, Ukrposhta and the Institute of History of Ukraine.
Money, Sovereignty and Power: The Paper Currency of Revolutionary Ukraine, 1917-1920 is curated by Bohdan Kordan, professor and director of the Prairie Center for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage (PCUH) at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan. This traveling exhibition was organized by PCUH in cooperation with the Ukrainian Museum of Canada.
The exhibitions will be open to the public from September 11 through November 27.
Read more: The Ukrainian Museum marks Ukraine’s independence anniversary with two exhibits
- Written by: Mark Stelmacovich
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Provisionals were a way that Ukraine supplemented an inadequate supply of national issues during 1992-1994. All of the provisionals stamp sets were in fact created locally (oblast, city). However, three of the overprinted sets achieved ‘national status’ almost as soon as they were issued, these being overprints of Kyiv, Lviv, and Chernihiv, aka the KLCs.
When Canadian Member of Parliament Borys Wrzesnewskyj attended Ukrainpex 2007, he indicated that he was involved with Kyiv’s Borysfen print shop. The Borysfen print shop in 1992 was responsible for the completion of the original overprinted sets for Kyiv, Lviv, and Chernihiv. The presses originally came from Canada and Wrzesnewskyj had made videos of the journey to get them into Ukraine. There they were first used in their Kyiv ‘underground’ bunker to produce Ukrainian pro-independence and pro-democracy leaflets and posters. As it turns out, the naming of the print shop is attributed to the mother of the young man doing the overprints, being a "fan" or as they say in Ukraine "fen" of Borys.