On May 12, a postcard with a commemorative stamp dedicated to the 250th Birth Anniversary of navigator Vasily Golovnin was put into postal circulation in the Geographical Projects of Russia series

Vasily Golovnin (1776–1831) was a Russian navigator, a memoirist, and a Vice Admiral. He was a Corresponding Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Vasily Golovnin was born in 1776 in the village of Gulynki in the Pereyaslav-Ryazan Province. He graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps. From 1802 to 1806, he was a trainee in the British Navy. Upon his return to Russia, he compiled a code of maritime signals. He completed two circumnavigations: aboard the Diana sloop in 1807–1809 and aboard the Kamchatka sloop in 1817–1819. He and his crew were kept under British detention in Cape Town. He conducted geographical and ethnographic observations. In 1811, V. Golovnin compiled a detailed inventory and mapped Shantar and Kuril Islands; while making an inventory of Kunashir Island, he, along with four sailors and two officers, was taken prisoner by the Japanese. He was one of the first in Europe to describe his stay in Japan and his voyages around the world in his books: Captain Golovnin’s Naval Notes on His Adventures as a Prisoner of the Japanese in 1811, 1812, and 1813. With the addition of his observations on the Japanese state and people, The Voyage... of the “Diana” sloop from Kronstadt to Kamchatka... in 1807, 1808, and 1809, A Voyage Around the World..., undertaken on the “Kamchatka” military sloop in 1817, 1818, and 1819.

V. Golovnin’s writings and his ethnographic collections are a valuable source of information on the ethnography of Polynesians and Micronesians. His travel accounts have been repeatedly reprinted, most recently in 2004.

In 1821, he was appointed assistant director of the Naval Corps, and from 1823, he was a quartermaster general of the fleet. He supervised the activities of the shipbuilding, commissariat, and artillery departments; under his leadership, more than 200 ships were built, including the first steamships. He trained a host of navigators, including F. Litke and F. Wrangel. V. Golovnin’ name was assigned to the strait between the Kuril Islands, a mountain, and a cape on Novaya Zemlya, among other features.

The main illustration provides a portrait of V. Golovnin, the Kamchatka sloop on which he sailed in 1817–1819, and the RGO logo; the commemorative stamp features images symbolically reflecting geographical projects.

In addition to the issue of the postcard with a commemorative stamp, JSC Marka produced special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg and Ryazan.


Design Artists: S. Kapranov and M. Podobed.
Quantity: 4 thousand postcards.

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