BORING POSTCARDS

LENINGRAD 1970 -- SOVIET ERA POSTCARDS, PART 1 -- FROM ILYA SEMENKO-BASIN -- MANY THANKS ILYA!

1. Statue of the famous Russian navigator I. Krusenstern

2. The Smolny

3. Near the Rostral Column

4. St. Isaac's Square

5. The 'Yubilelny' Sports Palace

Christmas postcard sent in 1977. Another example of production during the communist era in Poland, when attempts were made to detach Christmas from its religious context. A postcard of a completely secular nature. But such postcards were also produced in Western capitalist countries.

LENINGRAD 1970 -- SOVIET ERA POSTCARDS, PART 2 (of 3) -- FROM ILYA SEMENKO-BASIN

6. The Comedy Theater

7.Winter Palace, the Hermitage Museum

8. Griboyedov Canal

9. Bell Tower of St Nicholas Cathedral

10. Sverdlov Embankment --bforer coutry house of A Bazhenov and G. Quarenghi

LENINGRAD 1970 -- SOVIET ERA POSTCARDS, PART 3 (of 3) -- FROM ILYA SEMENKO-BASIN, AND THANKS FOR ALL OF THEM ILYA!

11. The Admiralty

12. Equestrian statue of Peter 1 (by E.M. Falconer)

13. The Neva

14. Pavilion of the Anichkov Palace 15. Sphinx from Ancient Thebes, Egypt, on the University Embankment

(One thing I find strange about these Postcards -- and indeed many others from the Cold War era -- is the absence of people in them. Where ere the Soviet, Hungarian, Polish etc citizens, and why weren't they shown on the Postcards?)

Postcards from smaller towns in Poland during the communist period often showed new housing estates built up with blocks of flats. Two examples from the 1970s.

Krapkowice.

Łabędy.

Christmas postcard from 1975.

BORING CHRISTMAS PÖSTCARDS FROM KATERINA -- THANKS, AGAIN -- THE FIRST FROM GREECE, THE OTHER THREE FROM BULGARIA

Glad they arrived ok :-)

...more "boring" coming for the New Year !

Christmas postcard from 1975. The use in this postcard of a figure of a dragon holding a lit candle in its mouth is interesting.

 A SUPER BORING 1931 POSTCARD -- COCOA BEANS FROM GUADELOPE

Christmas postcard from 1970.

Thanks, Val !  

THREE MORE FROM MIKEL UNTZILLA -- many thanks once again!

1. Miniatur-Welten von Karsten Thiele2.Castillo de Loarre (Huesca), Spain

3. Main entrance to the Cathedral at Clermont-Ferrand, France

"LE GRAND TOURNANT, LES MONTS DE CANTAL, FRANCE, FROM ANNE P

ANOTHER THREE FROM MIKEL UNTZILLA -- THANKS ONCE AGAIN, MIKEL!

1. Pompidou Center, Paris, France

2. Tai Pak Floating Restaurant, Hong Kong

3. 'True Luxury...' or a real convertible (with back-seat dog)

""True luxury is the time we give ourselves to live in the setting we create for ourselves." Woof!

RECEPTION AREA, HEART CLINIC, BEAUMONT-DE-LOMAGNE, FRANCE

Braunschwieg, former DDR, stadthalle/town hall, postcard about 1970/1980

FROM CATHARI --" Famous secret weapons: Lt. Dubois et Nestor, his ally in combat"

Biała Podlaska, town in east par in Poland, postcard from 1988.

MAN AND PIG HUNTING FOR TRUFFLES IN LE PERIGORD, FRANCE

SOME BORING SPANISH POSTCARDS

1. Main Road 'La Marina', Elche, Alicante, Spain

2.Municipal Park, Elche, Alicante, Spain

3. Palm Trees in the Municipal Park, Elche, Alicante, Spain

4. A boring road in San Guim de Freixanet, Lérida, Spain

THIS IS FERDINAND ROQUES 'PREPARING' THE SKIN OF A FOX IN FIGEAC, FRANCE (I don't know what the fox was called)

Welcome Penelope,

I hope you will enjoy the Group and become an acgive paticipant.

Please send me some Boring Postcards -- my address is 1 rue de la Vieille Fontaine, 11130 Sigean, France -- and I will post them here and add them to our ciollection which is ging to be exhibited in two different locations in France this summer.

Merci beaucoup, Val

Val:

Thank you for the welcome!  I have many questions. Pardon my ignorance.

• When I send you boring postcards, do they need to be unused? 
• Can I mail several to you in an envelope, since it costs just as much to mail a letter with enclosures.
• One person’s idea of boring is another person’s idea of humor. I LIKE the man prepping the fox hide, and the man and pig looking for truffles. 🤭

Mielno (German: Großmöllen or Groß Möllen) is a town in northwestern Poland located on the Baltic Sea and Jamno Lake, on the Slowinski Coast. The city, with two summer seaside resorts and a fishing harbor, is one of the many resort complexes of the Polish coast. A postcard from the late 1980s.

Biała Podlaska region, east part of Poland, postcard from 1975.

WELL, WE ALL GOT DRESSED UP IN THESE SILLY FOLK-LORE COSTUMES AND CAME DOWN TO THE RIVER WHERE PAPA INSISTED ON PLAYING HIS ZITHER AND WE ALL HAD TO WEAR SILLY HATS.

Swinoujscie (German: Swinemünde) - a city and health resort in the northwestern corner of Poland, the northwesternmost city in Poland with a seaport and a bathing resort, located on the Swina Strait and the Baltic Sea, the only city in Poland located on 3 large islands: Usedom, Wolin, Karsibor, and dozens (44 in total) of islands and islets.

Postcard with holiday house KORAB, 1969.

Zielona Gora - a city in the western part of Poland, near the border with Germany. Postcard from 1966, a block of flats in the Wazów housing estate.

FOUR POSTCARDS FROM THE LAST C ENTURY FROM PENELOPE TIMM: THANKS PENELOPE!

1. "Normal", Kingman Co, Kansas, USA

2. Greetings from the Netherlands

3. Monument to the Memory of the Combatants of 1870-71, Place de Trente-Octobre, Dijon, France

4. Moscow Kremlin/Red Square, USSR

THREE MORE  FROM MIKEL: THANKS SIGNOR!

1. Nocturnal View, Rue  del Villar, Santiago de Compostella, Spain

2. La Seine et le Pont Alexandre 111, Paris, France

3. Edelweis

Lyrics  rom The Sound of Music:

Edelweiss...
Edelweiss...
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow
May you bloom and grow

Zwoleń - a town in Poland, in Mazowieckie Voivodeship, Zwoleń County, the seat of the urban-rural municipality of Zwoleń. Situated on the Zwolenka River, in the South Masovian Hills, historically in the Małopolska region. On a postcard from 1973, the building of the Municipal Office.

TWO CHRISTMAS CARDS (from Greece?) AND A (French?) HAPPY NEW CAR CARD FROM KATERINA: merci beaucoup!

WINTERY ONES FROM MIKEL UNTZILLA: THANKS AGAIN!

1. I Love Ski

2. Ski Jump, Valle de Astun, Spain

3. Candancho, Pirineo Aragones, Spain

NEW YORK BORING POSTCARDS FROM ALF-OLE ASK: TAK!

1 The Fijiya Hotel, Natural Hot Spring, Miyanoshita, Japan

A very old postcard from early 1900s

Feeding time at the California alligator Farm, Los Angeles California

”The Pond”, Ashford, UK ,  no other details given. (Postcard appears very old: affix 1/2d stamp)

Good to see that the "New Cards" arrived in Sigean, Val,

even in time for New Year of the Dragon beginning in February, wow!

TWO FROM PETER WILSON -- THANKS PETER!

1. John J Donnelly Rocky River Nature Center, Cleveland Metroparks, North Olmstead, Ohio;

The Center is 'world-renowed for its ancient fossils'. And this is DUNK! -- 'the 360 million year-old Dunkeleosteus armored fossil fish unearthed in the Center's shale rock'.

Dunk like an occasional cup of coffee into which he duked his donuts...but that was at another place in Ohio where there is a Dunkin Donuts chain 360 million years later.

2. Pier W Cleveland's specialty seafood restaurant, Lakewoood, Ohio, USA

"You'll find more than you expected here. A stunning view of the lake and Clevland's skyline. Service so polished it's almost invisible. And a first-rate menu."

And a very ugly cantilevered restaurant building beneath a very ugly highrise. Maybe lots of architects go there for the view, the invisible service, and even the seafood.

SPOILER ALERT -- ADDICTION! WEIRD POSTCARD FROM FROM HELEEN DE VAAN (bedankt, Heleen)

It says: "The average person checks their phone 85 times a day. And you?"

Heleen reckons that this postcard is not just (or even not only) boring, but ugly - and I agree with her.

But it's interesting in it's own way -- a white, tattooed girl (I think) with  a . big brown non-humanoid ear. Does this represent the future of politically correct (boring) postcards?

Heleen wonders what we did 15 or so years ago when we didn't have smart phones?

(I'm not smart enough to have a so-called 'smart phone.', and I only look at my antique phone about 4 or 5 times a day.)

THREE WINTERY VIEWS OF CANDANCHU, SPAIN -- FROM MIKEL: thanks once again!

Ustronie Morskie, Baltic See beach, postcard about 1970.

LE LAC DE MATEMALE, FRANCE

BOTTOMS UP! PLANTING RICE IN LA CAMARGUE, FRANCE

Kalisz - market square and surroundings of the city (Goluchow castle and roadside inn), postcard from 1975.

EMPTY HALL AT FRANCE'S AEROP0RT DE MARSEILLE-MARIGNANE (with large plant)

THANK YOU CLEMENTINA CADERA FOR THIS BORING POSTCARD OF SORENBERG, SWITZERLAND

'Here's aBoring Postcard of a village where tourism made all the houses look pretty much the same', says Clementina

Reminds me of the 'Little Boxes song, of which here is the first verse:

A FRENCH EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENT

1. Draguignon Ecole Normale d'Institutrices'Normale'? Is there,  I wonder, a school for the abnomral, subnormal, or otherwise different in Var, France?