On June 7, a postage stamp dedicated to the 100th Birth Anniversary of poet Rasul Gamzatov was put into postal circulation

Rasul Gamzatov (1923-2003) was an outstanding poet, prose writer, essay writer, public and political figure, and translator; a Hero of Socialist Labor (1974) and a national poet of Dagestan ASSR (1959).

Rasul Gamzatov was born on September 8, 1923, in Avar aul Tsada of the Khunzakh District of Dagestan. In 1937, his poems began to be published in Republican Avar newspaper Bolshevik Gor (Bolshevik of Mountains). His first book in the Avar language was published in 1943. He translated classic and modern Russian literature into Avar, including A. Pushkin and M. Lermontov, V. Mayakovsky and S. Yesenin.

In 1939, he graduated from the Avar Pedagogical School and worked as a schoolteacher until 1941, then as an assistant director in a theater, a journalist in newspapers and at radio stations. In 1945-1950, he studied at the A.M. Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. From 1951 until the end of his life, he headed the writer's organization of Dagestan.

Writings by Gamzatov have been translated into dozens of languages of Russia and elsewhere. Many of Gamzatov's poems have become songs, such as Zhuravli (The Cranes), and Ischezli Solnechnie Dni (Gone are the Sunny Days). Many composers used to work in close coordination with Gamzatov, including Dmitry Kabalevsky, Yan Frenkel, Raymond Pauls, Yury Antonov, Alexandra Pakhmutova; among the performers of songs to his poems there were Anna German, Galina Vishnevskaya, Muslim Magomaev, Joseph Kobzon, Valery Leontiev, Mark Bernes, Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Lev Leshchenko and others.

The postage stamp provides a portrait of Rasul Gamzatov against mountains and flying cranes.

In addition to the issue of the postage stamp, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Kaliningrad and Makhachkala.


Design Artist: M. Podobed.
Face value: 63 rubles.
Stamp size: 50×37 mm, sheet size: 178×177 mm.
Emission form: a sheet with 12 (3×4) stamps.
Quantity: 120 thousand stamps (10 thousand sheets).

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