Kyiv, Ukraine

After two clumsy confusions and by mistake putting cards from Russia and Belarus, third luck charm and I get the intended Ukrainian postcard here....

As the back of the card says, here you can see the Nunnery of St. Mary the Protectress and the Monasterial Hospital. I am really not sure about the word 'hospital here, coz it doesnt occur in the German explanation on the card nor in the Russian and Ukrainian ones....in all the other explanations i see the word 'church' not 'hospital'...I am starting to wonder when did the explanations on the cards become so confusing and not so reliable...grrr....this is getting frustrating :@

the flower stamp is a definitive from a set of 18 issued in 2006

Kiev, Ukraine

My last card for today comes from Ukraine...

From the back of the card: This is the House with Chimeras, a very special house, built in 1902-1903 by Gorodeckiy. The building was open as Masterpieces of Ukrainian Art in November 2004. Since May 2005 it has been an official presidential residence used for official ceremonies.

Thanks a lot to Marina for sending me this one.

the stamp on the right is from a set of 6 issued in 2008, representing Ukrainian Folk Costumes - The Crimea -  Holiday of the Holy Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The other one is from a set of 3 issued in 2007, representing a candlestick

Kyiv, Ukraine

I have received some great mail today (and in a huge amount) so i really feel that i owe you an update...again :) Problem is, the reciprocity of cards i receive totally outnumbers the ones i upload here, so im just getting more and more behind with it all....and i had got my 101st country as well...but i wont tell you yet which one is it coz i simply havent been able to scan anything...and i dont wanna leave it until tonight or tomorrow or etc...so i guess you just have to stay tuned and patient until the next update to see it ;)

This magnificent card came as a lovely surprise from dear Ksenia. These Ukrainian cathedrals just have something special in them..i dont know if its coz of their colours but they certainly dont resemble a typical cathedral...this one is more like a castle that had come from a Disney Fairytale...i just cant decide if it belongs to Snow White, Cinderella,  Mulan or the Sleeping Beauty...though from the entire tranquil atmosphere around it, i would go for the Sleeping Beauty :)
This is the St. Sofia Cathedral, dating back from the XI century, and it is a UNESCO whs as well!! And no, i still havent updated my UNESCO list...i will, i promise.
The St. Sofia cathedral is an outstanding architectural monument of Kievan Rus'. Today, it is one of the city's best known landmarks and the first Ukrainian patrimony to be inscribed on the UNESCO whs list. The cathedral's name comes from the 6th-century Hagia Sophia cathedral in Constantinopole.
I havent come across the "Kievan Rus'" term before, and i was surprised to find out that it was a medieval state which existed from approximately 880 to the middle of the 12th century and was founded by the Scandinavian traders called Rus. Rus' polity is considered an early predecessor of three modern East Slavic nations, Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians. 
Is this another history lesson i hadnt paid attention to? 

From what i could gather, the stamp belongs to a set of 7 definitives, issued in 2007, featuring art and antique objects...i still need to get used to this 'definitives' word...

And Ksenia...dzięki! :)))))))

Kyiv, Ukraine

Thanks to Ksenia, I can finally say that my collection of a one single Ukrainian card, has increased to 4 now :)))  And that feels really great for the sake of the versatility and enrichment!!

I was struck by the beauty of the colours of the card...im a blue-against-white addict...but apart from the blue, the green and the goldish colour just feel so perfect...i dont know if its due to the sun-ray reflection or something else, but it certainly feels lovely!

What you can see is the Kyievo-Pecherska Lavra, among the chestnuts' candles (if it wasnt written on the back, i would have never figured its chestnuts),
This Orthodox monastery (also known as the Kyiv Monastery of the caves)  was founded by Saint Anthony of the Caves in the mid-11th century near the village of Berestove in a cave that the future metropolitan of Kyiv, Ilarion, had excavated and lived in until 1051. The first monks excavated more caves and built a church above them.
Since its foundation, as the cave monastery in 1015, the Lavra has been a preeminent center of the Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Eastern Europe. It is also inscribed as a UNESCO whs.

here's one of my favoruite 'language-issues'
the word 'pechera' means 'cave' (in Macedonian, the word for a cave is 'пештера' (peshtera)). The word 'lavra' is used to describe high-ranking monasteries for (male) monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Therefore the name of the monastery is also translated as the Kyiv Caves Monastery.

Thanks a LOT Ksenia for the absolutely great card! :)