The Sochi 2014 Organizing Committee and the Publishing and Trading Centre “Marka” have today signed a licensing agreement which grants “Marka” the right to issue post and philatelic items with the Sochi 2014 emblem.

Work on the project was carried out jointly by the Federal Communication Agency and the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Pochta Rossii “Russian Post”. The first stamps will be issued as early as January 2011 and the philatelic project will begin in four years time.

In order to create a topical theme, the philatelic production will be divided into several areas: “Sochi – capital of the XXII Olympic Winter Games”, “winter aspects of sport”, “Tourism on the Black Sea coast of Russia”, “Olympic sporting venues” and “XI Paralympic Winter Games”.

Postage stamps have become a traditional way to commemorate the Olympic Games. For example, there were stamps issued to commemorate the XXIX Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and the XXI Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver earlier this year. This year the baton has been passed to Sochi – the host city of the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Background information

Sochi in philately

The resort town Sochi became the object of philatelic interest long before it was announced to be the next Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games capital.

It has been revealed, in collector’s albums over sixty years old, that, there was a series of stamps dedicated to the relaxation and sanatorium centres of the Black Sea coast: The 1946 stamp was known as the “Sochi. Riviera”, with a face value price of 30 kopecks, (No. 1051), the issue of the 1947 “SSSR Resorts” in which honorary places adopted postal miniatures, with a face value of 30 kopecks and the final stamps(No 1193 – 1195) which depicted Voroshilov Sanatorium, known as “New Riviera” and “Zapadugol”.

Another broad topic, “Sochinskaya”, was introduced in a series in 1949 “SSSR Resorts”, where half of the ten stamps with a face value of 40 kopecks were dedicated to Sochi and Khost. At that time the objects of philatelic production became the Sanatorium Frunze and the State Theatre (No 1428, 1429) and also the Power Engineering Sanatorium, the All-Union Central Council of Trade-Unions and the Federal Ministry of Railway Transportation (No 1431 – 1433). It is not possible to name or issue some former (from the very beginning of 1949) series “Aspects of the Caucasus and Crimea”. Of these, the first three stamps have the face value of 40 kopecks, dedicated to Sochi: the first depicts the Sochi highway, the rest depict the Sochi arboretum (No 1349 – 1351).

In 1966, in the “Tourism in the SSSR” stamps were issued with a face value of 16 kopecks and depicted the Sochi hotel “Caucasus” (No 3388). During the 1988postal conversion, a 5 kopeck stamp was dropped which commemorated 150 years of the town of Sochi (No 5933). It had depicted the railway station building and a view of the town from the sea. This theme is continued in one of the miniatures from the series “Russia. Regions.” In 1997 a stamp with a face value of 1500 roubles was issued in the Krasnodar Region (No 383), which depicts the view of the Black Sea coast.