A colourful stamps sheet of USSR - CCCP

This colourful sheet of 15 stamps of the erstwhile USSR/CCCP was issued somewhere in late 1960s or early 70s and is part of my stamp collection.


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Postage stamps of CCCP - the USSR

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Postage stamps commemorating Yuri Gagarin's space mission

12th April 1961 was the fateful day when Yuri Gagarin, a Russian cosmonaut, lifted off aboard Vostok-1 and became the first man ever to have crossed the boundary of earth's atmosphere and traveled inside the outer space. His 108 minutes flight that took him into the space and also had a round around the earth's orbit was harbinger for the famous Apollo-11 mission that took men on moon.

The four stamps on the left were issued by the USSR on the occasion. The stamp by the erstwhile Czechoslovakia, that is part of my collection, was also issued in 1961. A set of two stamps was issued by CCCP / USSR in 1981 to commemorate the 20 years of the historical space journey.

In 1991, on the 30th anniversary of Yuri's first flight to space, USSR issued a souvenir set of four stamps to honour their hero as seen above.

Today on 12 April 2011, the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of this remember-able day that later paved for many manned missions to the outer space, specially the moon.

Related Link: 12th April 2011 - 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's journey into space

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Postage stamps of the CCCP - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Many new stamp collectors today may not know which country the CCCP stamps belonged to as it has been decades since the collapse of USSR, the Union of Socialist Republics, emergence of many countries known today as the CAR countries and of course the lone Russia. Deprived of all the Baltic republics that the USSR usurped, the once mighty USSR is now reduced to plain Russia.

USSR was essentially a Eurasian socialist state that existed between 1922-1991 before its disintegration into many CARs and what finally remained of it as Russia. The USSR was since 1956 a one unit of 15 republics, most of which fought fro their long independence from the USSR and finally got the status of their original independent status prior to amalgamation into the USSR.

My stamp album contains stamps only of the CCCP and not of Russia (that is post 1991 era). In fact all stamps are up to 1975, when finally my active stamp collection came to an end. A page of the CCCP stamps is as shared above. I will add more pages of CCCP stamps in time.

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