COVER N. 400 - GEORGIA

Postmark: Georgia Kutais1  20.01.2024

Posted on the 20th January; received on the 29th January 2024 

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And so we come to cover 400! Great! "Inch by inch, row by row,  gonna make this garden grow...". the words sang by Pete Seeger so many years ago echo in my mind as I type these notes, after having opened my letterbox to find a beautiful cover from Georgia inside, sent by the relentless Phantom traveller. Danke sehr, Alex!

It took me one year to reach cover 100, now the last hundred covers came within a matter of five and a half months... that's quite an acceleration....hope I don't get a speeding ticket  😀

Alex used two stunningly beautiful stamps on this cover, which constituted the Georgian 1999 EUROPA issue, which began to circulate on 28APR1999.

The theme for the 1999 common issue being Natural reserves and Parks, Georgia issued the above mentioned two stamps, highlighting the Batsara-Babaneury Reserve and one of its most  famous dwellers, the brown bear,  on the "A" tariff stamp (left corner) and the  Lagodekhi Reserve, and the none less famous red deer, on the "B" tariff stamp (right corner).

I find the illustrations on both stamps very beautiful, done in a neo-naturalist style that fits the theme most adequately,

The quite clear postmark, as it is always the case with Postmarkus Expertus Alexus, indicates that the cover was dispatched through Kutaisi, the legislative capital of Georgia, where its Parliament is located.