MOSCOW, October 3 (Itar-Tass) — Memorable cancellation of the First Day Cover and postage stamps opening the “XXII Sochi Olympic Games. Winter Olympic Sports” series will be held in Moscow and Sochi on Monday.
The new philatelic series is opened by three postage stamps devoted to cross country skiing, ski jumping and short-track, Russian Post told Itar-Tass.
The circulation of each stamp is 960 thousand copies. The new postage stamps will be put into circulation immediately after the cancellation ceremony that will be held in a direct video bridge format at two venues - in Moscow and Sochi.
In the RF capital, the Olympic marks will be stamped and signed by deputy head of the Federal Communications Agency Dmitry Panyshev, Director General of Russian Post Alexander Kiselev, President of Sochi-2014 Organising Committee Dmitry Chernyshenko, as well as the famous Russian athletes and skiers. In Sochi, this will be done by the city mayor Anatoly Pakhomov, Director of Russian Post branch in the Krasnodar Territory Georgy Osenchakov and medallist of the Turin and Vancouver Olympic Games, Ambassador of the Sochi-2014 Olymics Alexei Voyevoda.
Russian Post emphasised that a total of four souvenir sheets, 45 postage stamps on various subjects, maximum cards and postcards, as well as sets of all issued postage stamps in an artistic cover will be issued for the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games. Winter sports, Olympic sports facilities, as well as landscapes and landmarks of the Krasnodar Territory will be used as subjects for the postage products.
Russian Post is a unitary enterprise, which is a national postal operator of Russia. The company is responsible for the delivery of mail in Russia, and the issuing of postage stamps. Russian Post employs about 390,000 people and has over 40,000 postal offices. Russian Post has partnered with Sviaz-Bank in offering banking services at post offices across Russia.
Russian Post is a founding member of the Universal Postal Union created in 1874. In 1902 Chief Postal Service was made part of the Internal Affairs Ministry and in 1917 under the Provisional Government it became part of Ministry of Post and Telegraph. During the Second World War Soviet postal service part of People's Commissariat of communications was delivering up to 70 million parcels per month to the Soviet army front from the rear under extremely difficult and often very dangerous conditions.
In 1993 Russian Post became a part of Ministry of Communications and in 2002, its status changed from a government ministry to a Unitary enterprise in the framework of the restructuring the federal postal communication agencies. The company's headquarters are located in Moscow. In 2008, Andrei Kazmin, former CEO of Sberbank was appointed to the CEO of the company. Although in January 2009 it was announced that Kazmin had to leave his post as CEO of the Russian Post. Current General Director is Alexander Kiselev.