Rossica Electronic Newsletter - July 2008
© Rossica Society 2008

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Society Membership. Rossica is truly an international society. We have members who call the following countries home: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States.

From the Webmaster.

New Virtual Gallery is the most visited site on the Rossica Web Site!

• Rossica's new Virtual Gallery can be found at this website http://www.rossica.org/v_gallery/. There are currently four virtual exhibits available (Zek - a look into Soviet slave-labor camps; Military Censorship in Russia; Georgia Postal History; and A Look through the Judas Hole - all about the Russian prison-and-exile system)
• Visitors have the ability to comment or ask questions on each of these exhibits.
• This is a truly remarkable concept that transforms the exhibit you have seen at Philatelic shows to a virtual (on the Internet) display with the ability to provide and receive feedback!
• We have a number of exhibits waiting in the queue to be added to the Rossica Virtual Exhibit, to include exhibites on Zemstvos, on Russian Air Post, and on early 19th-century pre-stamp postage!
• Visit often and contribute to the discussion!

Events Calendar

Annual Meeting at BALPEX 2008. Most of the ducks have now been lined up for BALPEX 2008, 29-31 August. Rossica will be a convening society at this show, so we've pulled out more stops to make this a memorable event:

1. Our Annual General Meeting (AGM), with some interesting topics up for discussion.
2. A presentation by Joseph Geraci on "Postal Connections between Russia and Italy in the Nineteenth Century; an Exploration of Routes and Rates Involved."
3. Over 70 Russian and related-areas frames (That translates to well over 1100 pages of outstanding material on view). We hope to post the full list of exhibits on the Samovar when we get the final word from BALPEX.
4. The second vignette in the planned series honoring Rossica's early leadership. This year, it's Gregory Salisbury, the President and workhorse of the society from the 1950s up to 1968. We will also have the Arkhangelsky vignette on sale for those who missed out on it in 2007, or who want to replenish their stock.
5. The vignette artist, Catherine Nickle, will be on hand Saturday to sign sheets, blocks or stamps for anyone who so desires.
6. BALPEX hopes to have a special unveiling ceremony for the vignette, but this is still in the preliminary stages.
7. Docent tours of the Russian and related-areas exhibits.
8. A society booth where Rossica literature, lapel pins, coffee cups and whatnot can be purchased, and where folks can hobnob, shoot the breeze, chew the fat, join, rejoin, and laugh at the ridiculous purchases made by their fellow collectors. We are reasonably certain of having a two-frame exhibit at the booth, with one frame being a reprise of the Russian collecting areas exhibit shown at WASHINGTON 2006 and the other a display of Rossica vignettes and souvenir sheets from the early days to the present.

Just come on in when you get there.

The Rossica Journal

Journal Format Options. 24 members took advantage of the download option for Journal 150 and an additional 23 decided to receive their journal on a CD ROM. With today's world-wide web being more the norm than the exception, the digital journal is becoming more popular than ever. It is not too late to select the download edition of the Rossica Journal for the Fall. Although it is too late to realize any membership discounts for 2008, members selecting either the download or CD ROM version of the Journal will receive a discount on annual dues. Since our dues are relatively low anyway, what is the advantage of receiving a journal by download or CD ROM? Glad you asked!

• Receive your Journal via Download.
Your Journal is:
1. Available sooner than a print edition (often weeks in advance);
2. In FULL COLOR;
3. Is searchable using your (FREE) Adobe Acrobat reader;
4. Can be stored on your computer or on a CD ROM/DVD;
5. Takes up NO ROOM on your bookshelves;
6. Can be printed!
• Receive your Journal via CD ROM.
Your Journal is everything the downloadable journal is plus:
1. All images in the journal are captured on the CD ROM and available for viewing;
2. You may receive some 'extras' such as sample articles on the CD ROM.
• Your Journal will never arrive mangled or scuffed by the post!

Recent Award Winners

National Philatelic Exhibition (NAPEX) 2008.

• The Rossica Journal 2007. gold medal and a very solid 92 points for Journal #s 147-148. The journal was entered in the periodicals section of the literature competition (NAPEX is only one of a handful of shows in the U.S. at the national level to promote literature in this fashion), and it was up against some heavy hitters in the philatelic publishing world. NAPEX had 40 entries this year, a record for the show.
• Chris Kulpinski, "Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939-1941: A Postal History" received a vermeil in the literature competition.
• David Skipton, "A Short History of the Rossika Society, 1929-1968" collected a gold medal, also in the literature competition.
• Al Kugel, the only Rossica member with an entry out in the philatelic exhibit frames, showed his one-frame "The Turkish Occupation of the Caucasus and Persia During the First World War" and received a well-deserved gold for his display of extremely rare material. In this writer's humble but biased opinion, it should have won the single-frame exhibit grand award, but he was up against revenue and France and Colonies judges who thought otherwise...
• Al Zulueta, Al showed eight strong frames of "Afghanistan: Habibullah Khan Period, 1901-1919" and received a gold medal. Also American Philatelic Society Award of Excellence, Predominately 1900-1940