Anapa, Russia

Okay... Since today's theme seems to be "beautiful sceneries", here's one more card to add to this theme. If you couldn't see the text at the bottom, would you guess the card shows a place in Russia? I know I wouldn't; it looks more like somewhere in the Mediterranean area!



...but it IS definitely in Russia. I can't read Russian but there's a helpful English explanation on the back of the card.

Anapa is a town in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, located on the northern coast of the Black Sea near the Sea of Azov. It had a population of 53,493 in 2002. It boasts a number of sanatoria and hotels; along with Sochi and several other cities along the Russian coast of the Black Sea, it has enjoyed a substantial increase in popularity since the fall of the Soviet Union, which left traditional Soviet resort cities in Crimea and the breakaway republic of Abkhazia in Georgia on the other side of a national border.

Anapa, like the other Black Sea coast resorts, has a superb sunny summer climate. Anapa shows beautiful (and mostly sandy) beaches. However, Anapa seldom attracts vacation-goers from outside Russia due to its modest infrastructure and its inconvenient accessibility from Western Europe via Moscow or Krasnodar.



The bigger stamp is from the Europa series, this year's theme being Children's Books and this is the Russian contribution to the series. The stamp in the middle is from a set of 2 stamps issued in 2009, depicting Symbol of St Petersburg. This one here is the Ship of Admiralty steeple. The stamp on the left is from a set of 15 definitive stamps issued in 2008, showing animals, this one here being the Elk.

There was something else on the card that made me shake my head... The postman/mail sorter/whoever has scribbled "NOT xxx Street" on the card. There's a street with that name in my town, I live on the ROAD with the same name. How difficult is it to tell them apart, especially when the postcodes are different and the sender's handwriting is very clear?! *facepalm* This has happened before but I still can't quite understand it.