COVER N. 325 - CROATIA 

Postmark: No postmark

Posted on (?); received on the 27th September 2023

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A stamp can trigger great memories.

Thank you so much Nikola. 1998 was a great year indeed, and seeing this little souvenir sheet on the cover you sent me just made me remember a lot of things about the great EXPO 98 World Fair that took place in our capital city.

When I was a lad of four, my father would take me on long walks to up to the riverside from where we lived. I loved to see the Flying boats... I remember. These were Aquila's Airways Short Solent that were left to languish on the dock after the folding of the company by the end of the 50's of last century.

How was I to know that some 35 years later I would go to the same place to see not the Flying Boats but a myriad of dazzling spectacles which included street parades by the craziest machines one could ever think of, light and sound displays, concerts of all kinds of music, pavilions with the best that every participating country had wanted to show us of their culture and geography... and yet, there I was with my wife and daughters and millions of other visitors, happy to have the chance of a lifetime to visit such a thrilling and varied cultural showcase.

Nowadays the old derelict yards, which had accommodated an oil refinery, rusty containers and all kinds of neglected spaces, upon which the Expo was erected, are occupied by housing, with a density that probably could match that of Hong Kong or Macao, but the river front is totally unimpeded, safe for some of the infrastructures that were left in place after the Expo, like Lisbon's Oceanarium. All in all a great trade off in my opinion, even if, as I said, housing density in the area is, in my view, absolutely exaggerated.

see..? all these thoughts just from looking at a stamp...   

Within the programme of the Expo an international Stamp Exhibition was also organised, although I have no recollection of visiting it.

The souvenir sheet on the cover Nikola sent me was issued by the Croat Postal Administration celebrating this event on 03JUN1998. It depicts a Gajeta Falkusa, a type of traditional fishing boat in use in the Croat Island of Viz.

The theme of the Expo being the Oceans, boats of all types participated in the event. One of them was a Gajeta built expressly for the Expo, which is the vessel that features on the stamp in the souvenir sheet.