The Zielona Góra Wine Festival

The Zielona Góra Wine Fest (Polish: Winobranie w Zielonej Górze) is a wine festival held in the Polish town of Zielona Gora. The tradition is related to the period of harvest of grapes from the local vineyards which were then turned into wine. The first festival took place in October 1852. Nowadays it starts in the first or second week of September and lasts for nine days.

The festivities start on a Saturday with a parade through the city centre. It is preceded by a symbolic ceremony when the Roman wine god Bacchus and his Maenads receive the keys to the town from the local authorities. During the nine days a lot of cultural and sport events take place, among which the International Festival of Folklore is one of the most prominent. There are also theatre meetings (including street theatres) and music concerts.

The centre of the town turns into a big marketplace for the time of the fest, with a separate street allotted for the antiques market.

Thank you Dear Jadwiga for this nice card.

Fall Themed Cards from Finland

These two cards were also released along with this year's traditional fall-themed stamps (see my post dated 28th September,2013 in my blog www.http://letstalkstamps.blogspot.in/  

Thank you dear Ella for these lovely cards.

The Gendarmenmarkt in Berlin

The Gendarmenmarkt is a square in Berlin, and the site of the Konzerthaus and the French and German Cathedrals. In the centre of the square is a statue of Germany's poetFriedrich Schiller.The square was created by Johann Arnold Nering at the end of the seventeenth century as the Linden-Markt and reconstructed by Georg Christian Unger in 1773. The Gendarmenmarkt is named after the cuirassier regiment Gens d'Armes, which was deployed at this square until 1773.

During World War II, most of the buildings were badly damaged or destroyed. Today all the buildings have been restored to their former state.

The French Cathedral (in German: Französischer Dom) the older of the two cathedrals, was built by the Huguenot community between 1701 and 1705. The cathedral was modelled after the destroyed Huguenot church in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France. The tower and porticoes, designed by Carl von Gontard, were added to the building in 1785. The French cathedral has a viewing platform, a restaurant and a Huguenot museum.

The German Cathedral (in German: Deutscher Dom) is located in the south of the Gendarmenmarkt. It has a pentagonal structure and was designed by Martin Grünberg and built in 1708 by Giovanni Simonetti. It too was modified in 1785 by Carl von Gontard, who built the domed tower. The German Cathedral was completely destroyed by fire in 1945, during World War II. After German reunification it was rebuilt, finished in 1993 and re-opened in 1996 as a museum of German history.

Thank you Marco for this lovely card.

Angry Birds

Itella Posti Oy most probably made history by releasing the world's first official Angry Birds stamps, featuring six of the popular game characters - five birds and one pig on 9^th September, 2013. The designer of the stamps is Toni Kysenius, Art Director at Rovio Entertainment, who also designed the HockeyBird character and related stamp issue for last year's IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships. 

In order to ensure authenticity, the Angry Birds stamps feature a pattern which is only visible under UV light. In addition, an irregular perforation follows the shape of the characters. The sheet of six 1^st class stamps also includes Priority labels fitting the appearance of the stamps.

Angry Birds is a video game franchise created by Finnish computer game developer Rovio Entertainment. Inspired primarily by a sketch of stylized wingless birds, the first game was first released for Apple's iOS in December 2009. Over 12 million copies of the game have been purchased from Apple's App Store, which has prompted the company to design versions for other touchscreen-based smartphones, including the Android, Symbian and Windows Phone operating systems. It has since expanded to video game consoles and for PCs.

Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of addictive gameplay, comical style, and low price. Its popularity led to versions of Angry Birds being created for personal computers and gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters and even long-term plans for a feature film or television series. With nearly 2 billion downloads across all platforms and including both regular and special editions, the game has been called "one of the most mainstream games out right now", "one of the great runaway hits of 2010", and "the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far".

Thank you Ella for this lovely Angry Birds maxi card.

Postcrossing

"Postcrossing" is an international and strongly growing hobby in which people from different parts of the world send each other traditional postcards. In the future, Finnish enthusiasts will be able to send their cards using dedicated stamps. The Postcrossing booklet released by Itella Posti Oy features four 1^st class NVI stamps and Priority labels. The layout of the stamp sheet, which can be folded in two in the middle, was made by the Helsinki-based design agency Kokoro & Moi.

The postcrossing website www.postcrossing.com currently has more than 426,000 registered users from 214 countries. The basic idea of postcrossing is that each sender of a card receives at least one card back from a random sender somewhere in the world. Globally, postcrossers send approximately 600 postcards every single hour. There are some 15,000 postcrossers in Finland, and so far they have sent more than 1.7 million cards.

Thank you Ella for these lovely cards embellished with the pretty postcrossing stamps and the first day of issue postmark.

Blue Ribbon campaign and prostate cancer research

This year's charity stamp from Åland Post focuses on the Blue Ribbon campaign and prostate cancer research. This card was issued along with the the charity stamp. You can read all about the stamp and the first day cover on my blog www.letstalkstamps.blogspot.com 
The Blue Ribbon card is designed by Åland graphic designer Håkan Sandberg, who himself was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  

Håkan Sandberg’s stamp features a garden sculpture, which he has created himself. The sculpture represents a bon vivant, who enjoys life on earth. Apart from wanting to emphasize the importance of living in the here and now, another purpose of the stamp is to challenge the taboo surrounding prostate cancer. The Blue Ribbon logo has been visibly placed on the stamp.

Thank you Dear Ella for this nice FDC.

SS Princess Anastasia