On July 14, a postage stamp dedicated to the donation of bone marrow and the Priceless Letter Project was put into postal circulation

In July of 2021, JSC Russian Post, in association with the National Registry of Bone Marrow Donor and Rusfond, launched the Priceless Letter project, which aims to promote bone marrow donation in Russia. The Project’s goal is to make the procedure of searching for a donor as simple as possible through online recruitment, making it free and accessible.

Anyone can become a potential bone marrow donor without visiting a laboratory. To do this, everyone who wants to become a donor should only order a smear kit from the inside of the cheek by mail and send the buccal epithelium to the Registry by mail. The procedure is free of charge: all expenses are borne by the organizers of the Project.

At the moment, there are more than 165,000 people in Russian registers who require bone marrow transplantation. The organizers of the Priceless Letter Project hope that a simplified procedure for taking buccal epithelium and informing the public that each of us can be a suitable donor and save someone's life will speed up the search for the necessary donor.

Participation in the Project for people from all corners of Russia will help create a large national registry and increase the chances of recovery for thousands of people. It is not easy for a patient with a severe oncological, hematological or hereditary disease to find an unrelated donor: a chance of finding a compatible unrelated donor for the patient is 1 in 10 thousand. But if you search among your compatriots, the chances increase. There are about 200 ethnic groups living in our country, so the genetic fund is very diverse.

The postage stamp provides an illustration featuring a patient who receives a letter containing biomaterial from a donor.

In addition to the issue of the postage stamp, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don.


Design Artist: Kh. Betredinova.
Face value: 50 rubles.
Stamp size: 37×37 mm, sheet size: 152×152 mm.
Emission form: a sheet with margins with 9 (3×3) stamps.
Quantity: 189 thousand stamps (21 thousand sheets).

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