Dear friends, we present you the significant section of the museum Collection repository that includes a variety of old postcards. Published at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they feature the most valuable evidence of the bygone era.

Postcards were made according to the standard of the Universal Postal Union, established in Switzerland in 1874.  It is of interest to note that Russian Empire was one of the twenty-two establishing states that signed the General Postal Convention. This document was based on the unity of postal tariffs and duties, the liberty of forwarding transit mail and many other provisions that eliminated the obstacles that hindered the development of international postal exchange. On July 1, 1875, the Universal Postal Union formally allowed postcards, and they were included in the international circulation. In 1878, at the World Postal Congress in Paris the international standard of an open letter (postcard) with the dimensions of 90 x 140 mm was adopted and existed for half a century.

As a rule, postcards were issued in series. For example, on the anniversary celebrations of the Romanovs House, the famous Moscow publishing house "Scherer, Nabgolts and Co" issued a single purpose series "The Romanovs", which is presented in the museum Collection. The so-called "landscape series" with the views of the Russian Empire towns were very popular. Postcards with the portraits of famous artists of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi theaters were in great demand. Separate series documenting the Tzar family life events, ceremonial walkings out, and important state rituals existed as well

The museum Collection repository features the variety of the postcards’ series published by the leading printing houses and photo studios, such as "Photography and prototypy of Karl Fischer", "Typography and art phototypy of A.F. Dressler", Labor artel for art illustrations "MYTH", etc.

Over the long term, we are planning to publish the stories of these studios and associations, the thematic albums with postcards from the museum Collection repository. Today we present the first thematic album "Vintage postcards: retrospective".