OREANDA-NEWS. September 26, 2008. Two events very important for the Russian numismatics and philately took place on September 11, in Pashkov’s House, at the gala night dedicated to the 190th anniversary of Goznak.

The special ceremony of cancellation of the stamp dedicated to Goznak’s jubilee was carried out to fanfares with participation of Arkady Trachuk, General Director of Goznak, and Naum Marder, Deputy Minister of Mass Communications. The commemorative postmark impressions were affixed on the envelopes with the souvenir sheets.

The jubilee stamp was issued by the Publishing and Trading Center “Marka” under the guidance of the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation and produced at the Moscow Printing Factory of Goznak. Besides the separate souvenir sheet, a special polygraphic booklet was published. The booklet contains the souvenir sheet and a stamp dedicated to an outstanding engineer and architect Augustine de Betancourt who supervised the building of the future Goznak. (The stamp was also issued in a separate edition).

Alexander Popriadukhin, Artist of the Publishing and Trading Center “Marka”, the author of 28 themes of the Russian postage stamps, the author of the jubilee postage stamp dedicated to the 190th anniversary of Goznak, and Valentina Strizhevskaia, typographer of the Moscow Printing Factory of Goznak, who took part in its production, were present at the ceremony of the stamp cancellation.
The Russian post office has dedicated such an important and noticeable for the collectors of Russia and the whole world issue – the souvenir sheet – for the first time.
The design in the shape of a banknote, so exactly reflecting the style and the thematic trend of the issue, has never been applied to the Russian valuable postal matters before. The metallic foil relief stamping decorates the stamp remarkably. And the special circular perforation is also applied to the souvenir sheets for the first time in Russia. The present issue dedicated to the 190th anniversary of Goznak, just like the majority of other high-class valuable postal matters in Russia, is produced at the Moscow Printing Factory – Branch of Goznak.

An envelope to commemorate the first day of the unique souvenir stamp circulation and a special cancellation postmark were produced for the commemorative cancellation.
The postmark contains the date; the imprint fixing the date, month and year of the jubilee cancellation, is made with its help. The jubilee coin dedicated to the jubilee of Goznak was also presented at the gala night –the biggest Russian gold coin with the weight of three kilograms was presented by Georgy Luntovskiy, Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, Alexander Baklanov, People’s Artist of Russia, Chief Artist of the Design Center of Goznak, the author of the jubilee coin, and Andrey Myakishev, Minter of the Saint-Petersburg Mint, who struck all the 50 three-kilogram gold coins which became rarities at once.