The participants of the ceremony were Elena Astrakhantseva, Deputy Minister for Agriculture of the Russian Federation; Vladimir Shelikhov, Deputy Head of the Federal Communications Agency; Vyacheslav Lukomets, Rector of the Russian State Agricultural University (Moscow Agricultural Academy named after Kliment Timiryazev); and Elena Metelkova, Director of the Department of Scientific and Technological Policy and Education in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation. Russian State Agricultural University (Moscow Agricultural Academy named after Kliment Timiryazev) is the oldest and world-famous higher education institution, and a leading educational, scientific, methodic and consultation center of agricultural education system of Russia.
December 3, 1865 is considered a foundation date, when Petrovskaya Farming and Forest Academy was created by a Royal decree of Emperor Alexander II to train educated specialists able to organize agricultural production on a scientific basis. In 2008, the University was included into the State Corpus of Especially Valuable Cultural Heritage Sites of Peoples of the Russian Federation by a Decree of the President of the Russian Federation. Nowadays, Russian State Agricultural University (Moscow Agricultural Academy named after Kliment Timiryazev) is a single educational, scientific and production complex uniting 14 faculties, 100 chairs, the Institute of Environmental Engineering named after Alexey Kostyakov and the Institute of mechanics and energetics named after Vasiliy Goryachkin, university branches in Kaluga and Dmitrov, various scientific and production associations, centers, complexes, departments, laboratories, schools and other units.
The postage stamp is important to immortalize the commemorative date of the university in the history of philately. “The stamp will go on sale in all the post offices of our country and will be used to send correspondence within Russia and around the world. It will also be included into Russian and international philatelic collections and catalogs”, said Mr. Shelikhov. The postage stamp depicts the university anniversary logo. Additionally, FSUE PTC “Marka” has manufactured an illustrated cover with the stamp and a first day cover with cancellation (Moscow) inside. Design: R. Komsa.Face value: 17 RUB. Size of stamp: 37×37 mm, size of sheet: 132×132 mm. Form of issue: sheet with illustrated margins of 9 (3×3) stamps. Circulation: 315,000 copies of each stamp (35,000 stamp sheets).
