Your postcard in reality

[Waxwingshadow]

This is a typical touristic view postcard from Moscow. An image of a place we call VDNKh or Exibition of Achievements of National Economy.

It’s a huge place and what you see in the postcard is a view of its central avenue with two fountains. The Friendship of Nations fountain is the one in the foreground. The golden statues used to represent the 15 Soviet Republics of the Soviet Union.
As I live not very far from this place and often go there, I know that the photo is pretty old and the place in the picture looks quite a bit different. So I went there today and took some photos of this place to show how it looks right now.
And that is basically the idea of this topic - to show a postcard and then the image from the postcard in real life. Please, do not put yourself in danger to make a picture.

That is as close as I could get to the fountain because in winter most of the central avenue is turned into a huge skating rink. In my photo you look at the fountain from the opposite side so you can actually see the pavilion from which the picture in the postcard was taken. And this is the view in the other direction

The whole place is being renovated right now, but it’s still like travelling on a time machine because the Soviet symbolics and architecture are carefully preserved. Here are some pictures of the pavilions (made with my old phone so I appologize for the quality)

[cleopatra-matta]

Hey, this tag it’s really a great idea! I’ll be taking some pictures at the first time I go to town!
(I’d suggest one picture though, like: the postcard and the picture, trying to copy the same angle.
Too many pictures would make the thread too long to browse. )

[brighteyes]

I like different angles! Makes it easier to get the whole picture

@cleopatra-matta

(I’d suggest one picture though, like: the postcard and the picture, trying to copy the same angle.
Too many pictures would make the thread too long to browse. )

Or just can hide them into a gallery if it’s too long.

[kampfetka]

Wow! Great topic! As for me, I recently did smth like that in Saint-Petersburg. Was curious about how the place has changed in 20 years.
I have a postcard with the Winter Palace on it printed back in 2001.

So I went the same place and tried to manage of taking the picture from the same angle:

So, we could see, how trees have grown. Everything else stays the same.

[Waxwingshadow]

Yes, I think especially in these crazy times, when people can’t travel and everything. Maybe it will make somebody’s day brighter or something. I hope it will be educational as well, as local people usually know a lot of interesting details and small bits of trivia about these famous places, living near them day after day. I encourage everyone to be as creative with it as they can. One picture or many, let’s experiment and see. Any ideas are welcome!

[Waxwingshadow]

Thanks for sharing! I did exactly the same thing today. I went out to the Museum of Cosnonautics with my dog and took a postcard of it with me.

l
I’ll write about it a bit later, with more pictures.

[ana_karp]

There wasn’t Golden eagle statue on telegraph tower in 2001

[kampfetka]

Indeed!
No one bird can escape @ana_karp 's attention

UPD: I looked it up and found out, that this Golden eagle (as other symbols of the Russian Empire) were removed by the Russian Provisional Government during the Russian Revolution in 1917.
The Eagle came eventually back almost 100 years later - in 2014, his return was held in conjunction with the Hermitage 250th anniversary.

[Waxwingshadow]

Although the back of this postcard states that it’s the Museum of Cosmonautics, the monument you see in it was there long before the museum was opened and is called the Monument to the Conquerors of Space. Here it is in reality from the same angle and with my dog’s head in the picture😊

It is situated in a small park in the north-east part of Moscow and you actually have to go past it if you are going to the VDNKh(place with all the pavilions from the first post) from the VDNKh underground station.

There is Cosmonaut Alley leading up to it which is packed with all kinds of monuments of people related to space exploration in Russia.

The first two are of Gagarin and Tereshkova (the first woman cosmonaut)

Star-shaped commemorative plaques of important stages in space exploration

There are beautiful bas-reliefs on both sides of the monument and the actual museum of cosmonautics is at the back of the monument and is closed now for obvious reasons.

Children in Moscow usually go on class excursions to this museum and many have been in it many times. It’s quite a cool place to visit.
There’s also a Cosmos hotel and a Cosmos cinema in the nearby streets and the one and only Moscow Monorail built in2004.

The covid-warnings in the area are also space-related. Here are a few examples

[valdavid]

Love this idea! Thinking that COVID lockdowns may make it hard to be out and about and take pics.

Here’s an illustrated viewcard of our capital city’s downtown:

Picture credit: GoodFreePhotos

[Waxwingshadow]

It’s not always necessary to go outside to make your postcard real. I am going to write about a set of postcards which are illustrations by a very famous Russian illustrator next. I have books with his illustrations at home. Or if you have a postcard with a cute hamster and have a real hamster at home, you can make your postcard real. Or a postcard with a book cover and an actual book. Just be inventive and have fun.

[alikat229]

Where did you get the postcard?! I’m a NC native grew up around Raleigh, but now live in the Triad area. Next time I go back to visit family I wanted to stop by Raleigh to pick up some postcards for swaps.

[alikat229]

I did something similar a few years ago before I even got into postcrossing (only started a couple months ago). But I’ve always loved postcards and saw a vintage postcard in an antique shop on a trip that had a historic hotel from the city I was currently living in (Fayetteville, NC). So I bought it and took it back home and took this photo. I was so sad that the building was empty at the time and had been so for a while. I see now though that they renovated it finally into apartments!

[Kanerva]

We have many bridges, but this one, Jätkänkynttilä (Lumberjack’s candle), has become a landmark of Rovaniemi. Card image is by a local photographer Kaisa Siren:

And this photo I took today:

[Waxwingshadow]

It’s so cool to see the postcards as someone’s reality! Seems like magic. Thanks for sharing!

[Marghit]

Salzburg in Austria…
This postcard shows the gate to the Mirabell Gardens in winter, in the background the Fortress Hohensalzburg and the towers and the dome of Salzburg Cathedral,

Postcrossing postcard AT-432624 from Austria

and a photo, which I took in January 2018

[JuliaAr]

Ten rubles. Chapel of Paraskeva Friday, Krasnoyarsk.

The reverse side of the banknote depicts the Krasnoyarsk hydroelectric power station, a structure significant for Siberia.

The photo is not mine, but the city is mine.

[metlodyt]

This is a fun topic! Thank you all for sharing

I took this photo of a postcard location today:

Apart from the season and the (mild) lockdown it pretty much looks the same.
I might edit later with a photo that copies the angle a little better. Something about these card-reality matches is super satisfying to me. I wish there were more good postcards from my town.

[Waxwingshadow]

This postcard is from a set of postcards with illustrations by a very famous Russian illustrator Nikolai Kochergin (1897-1974). His illustrations are instantly recognisable by people of different generations, even if they don’t know his actual name. He is especially famous for his illustrations of Russian fairy tales and epic poems about Russian bogatyrs (strong epic knights protecting the country), but he was an incredibly prolific painter and his legacy is just jaw-droppingly awesome.

Here’s the actual illustration in a book. I only have this one postcard from the set, but here’s a photo of them all

The postcards were issued by a well-known private publishing house which publishes books with his illustrations. There were at least three sets of cards with his illustrations published in the last five years so maybe you have some of them in your collection.

[Waxwingshadow]

This is a postcard of a Floating bridge in Zaryadye park in Moscow, which is a popular tourist spot right next to Red Square. The same bridge can also be seen on stamps. I used all of mine, so the photos of stamps are from internet.

The second stamp is an Amphitheatre with a glass roof and an open stage from the same park. There’s also a museum, a concert hall, an ice cave, Russian birches and what not. So here we go.

The Amphitheatre and the open stage with the view on the Kremlin were all covered in last night’s snow.
Here’s how the Floating bridge looks from the park. People often call it The Paper Clip.

It almost overhangs the Moskva river and offers a magnificent view of a skyscrapper on Kotelnicheskaya embankment in one direction (the building in the postcard) and a view of the Kremlin in the other. Like this

Here’s a postcard with the second view from a very popular set of watercolour views of Moscow by Anton Batov.

The tall building in the distance is an appartment house built during the Stalin era. There are seven of them in Moscow and they are a popular subject for tourists postcards. Here it is up close

A lot of famous people lived there so its walls are covered with commemorative plates. This one is for Galina Ulanova, a very famous Russian ballerina. Her flat is actually a museum, so you can visit the inside of the building if you wish.

In the left wing of the building is an old cinema that shows arthouse films with subtitles and old black and white movies, a popular spot for cinema fans in old times.

The building can be seen in this postcard showing a view of Zamoskvorechie district.