Ukraine’s stamps put humor, patriotism and profanity on the post

Rude gestures are rare on stamps, but Ukraine’s best-known stamp has one. It shows a soldier raising the middle finger to a Russian warship in reference to a stand-off on Snake Island on day one of the full-scale invasion nearly three years ago.

The Russians demanded surrender, but the Ukrainians refused, using unprintable language.

The warship in question, the cruiser Moskva, was sunk by the Ukrainians two days after the stamp was issued, and it sold out within a week of going on sale.

Such is the meaning of the stamp that what was left was given to government delegations represent Ukraine on the world stage.

Ihor Smilyansky, the head of Ukraine’s postal company Ukrposhta, acknowledges that it was a risky step to take.

“It was my decision. I said – I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I just believe it’s the right thing to do,” he told the BBC. “I know it breaks all philately [study of stamps] rules and all rules. But we are about breaking the rules’.

Ukrposhta often tests its design on the public, and the results of such online polls tend to be highly political as well.

That’s how Ukraine’s best-selling stamp came to be, showing a Ukrainian tractor towing a captured Russian tank and bearing the popular wartime greeting: “Good evening, we’re from Ukraine.”

Ukrposhta has sold about eight million such stamps.

Stamps with Ukraine famous mine-sniffing dog Patron earned Ukrposhta around $500,000 (£400,000): 80% of the money was spent on demining equipment, and the rest on animal shelters.

Another stamp of one mural left by famous graffiti artist Banksy on a building destroyed by shelling outside Kiev, helped finance 10 bomb shelters. This stamp features another popular but unprintable Ukrainian slogan – this time aimed at Vladimir Putin.

Ihor Smilyansky says a dose of humor is added to Ukrposhta’s stamps to maintain Ukrainian morale during the war with Russia.

“Humor has become a fighting force for Ukrainians in this war,” he tells the BBC. “Even in the most difficult circumstances, you have to take it with humor. And that’s what our stamps are sometimes about.”

Oscar Young of British stamp dealers and auctioneers Stanley Gibbons says Ukraine’s approach to stamps by focusing them on the war is very unusual.

“In general, stamps are artistic and polite, but to go out and be quite rude, to put profanity and be very gestural on stamps – that’s quite unique to these particular issues,” he tells the BBC.

He says the candid image used on the warship stamp is what made the stamp so famous and caused such a stir when it was issued.

The distinctive features of Ukrainian stamps have earned them popularity among collectors all over the world.

Laura Bullivant from Gloucester, UK, thinks other stamps look bland in comparison.

“I think they’re like the Ukrainian thought process, they’re just strong and they just don’t bow to what comes into their country,” she says.

“At a time of great concern and horror, they bring something to the game that no other country could.”