COVER N.163 - RUSSIA

Postmark: ПОЧТА РОССИИ - КАЛУГА ПОЧТАМТ УООПО 248099 (Russian Post - Kaluga Post Office 248099) 
Posted on the 25 August; received on the 97th September 2022
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Another one of Julia's very nice covers always complemented with a few interesting stamps. Thank you so much again Julia!

Dmitry Borisovich Glinka was another of the Russian air aces of WW2 who scored a total of 50 air victories, for which he was twice awarded the title of hero of the Soviet Union, and who survived to tell the tale.

Born in 1917 in Kryvyi Rih, today the 6th largest Ukranian city, he joined the military in 1937, after learning to fly at the at the Kryvyi Rih aeroclub, also in present day Ukraine.

Most of his air victories were achieved in an American aircraft, the P-39 Aircobra, supplied to the Soviet Union by the US, under Roosevelt's lend- lease programme.

One cannot escape the irony of thinking that if it was today, he would probably  be fighting against those he fought for... possibly on American supplied aircraft....

Having left the military in 1960, Glinka would employ his skills and knowledge in the cause of civil aviation, both as a pilot and instructor. He died in 1979.

Dmitri Glinka was honoured by the Russian Post more than once with special covers. The one Julia kindly sent me was issued in 2017 and it features Glinka's photograph with his P-39 Airacobra in the background and his two "Hero of the Soviet Union" decorations right before his effigy.

The envelope is self-stamped with an imprinted Tariff A (Domestic up to 30g) stamp mark

Stamps, left to right:

According to an entry on Arctic cooperation and politics in Wikipedia, "In 2007, Russia planted a flag on the Arctic Ocean seafloor beneath the North Pole while performing research to substantiate its claim to an extended continental shelf." 

The fact is clearly highlighted by the 8 Rubble stamp on my cover, issued on 07DEC2007 as part of a se-tenant two even priced stamp set and a label, themed on Arctic Exploration. The legend reads СЕВЕРНЬІЙ ПОЛЮС ГЛУБИНА 4300 m or NORTH POLE DEPTH 4300 m.

5 Rubble stamp celebrating the centenary of birth of Dmitry Likhachov (1906-1999) a Russian scholar and a survivor of the Gulag, considered to have been in his life the  foremost authority in Old Russian and its literature.

He was detained and exiled in a concentration camp for having questioned the 1918 soviet reform of the Russian orthography, ... Sigh....how come this be...? Portuguese, as we write it today, was the subject of a useless and senseless orthographic revision that occurred in 1990. I have made fun of it many times... just to think of it....

On 11MAY2021, the Russian Post issued a minisheet with four 24 Rubble stamps dedicated to the Technological Achievements of Russia. The stamps feature an autonomous  Robot, a satellite navigation system, a combat robot and an autonomous submarine.

Fyodor (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research) the robot, the subject of the stamp on the cover, was the first autonomous robot to have been sent to the international space station where he accomplished several tasks, proving its worth as a viable technological aid.

The robot reputation would notwithstanding be forever stained by a video of him shooting a live gun, what had some consequences in the development of the project, with a parts supplier abandoning it.

Surely there could be better things for Fyodor to do than to shoot live ammunition (or any ammunition, for that matter), right?