Cherry Blossom in DC Signaling the Start of Spring

The National Park Service announced last Friday that the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin in Washington DC were officially at peak bloom on March 25, 2016 with 75% of the trees in full bloom. It was peaked more than two weeks earlier this year than last year.

Postcard US-3373353 to Czech Republic shows the cherry blossoms around the Lincoln Memorial with a matching USPS Gifts of Friendship stamp.

Vista of Capitol through Cherry Blossoms

Outgoing postcard US-3372297 to Japan was a reproduction of vintage linen postcard Vista of Capitol through Cherry Blossoms, Washington, D. C. by D.C. Reynolds Co in the 1930s. It shows the famed cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin with the U.S. Capitol Building in the background. It has one of the USPS Gifts of Friendship stamps featuring the U.S. Capitol building surrounded by white and pink dogwood trees.

According to a USPS news release, "in a ceremony at the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., on March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first two of 3,020 flowering cherry trees gifted to the nation’s capital from the city of Tokyo. As a show of gratitude for this generous gift, former President William Howard Taft arranged for the United States to send 50 flowering dogwood trees to Japan in 1915. This reciprocal gift featured a species of tree native to the eastern United States and Canada."

Druzhba Sanatorium, Yalta, Ukraine

Postcard RU-1999185, arrived yesterday from Russia, was titled Yalta: The Students' Hostel "Druzhba". I had immediate suspicion that it was a little more than a hostel just from its appearance. With some research, it turns out to be one of the strangest buildings in the world.

Druzhba is a Slavic word for friendship. Druzhba Sanatorium (Friendship Spa), or Druzhba Holiday Center, was a joint venture between the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, overlooking a popular Black Sea beach 8 km from the then exclusive Soviet resort town of Yalta. The cylindrical shaped complex supported by giant cement legs, was built between 1983 to 1985 by Ukrainian architect Igor Vasilevsky and engineer Yurij Stefanchuk. It was space themed to commemorate the first cosmonaut Vladimír Remek from Czech on board the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 28, launched on March 2, 1978, and the first Czechoslovak satellite Magion 1, launched as a Soviet scientific S/C hitchhiker on October 24, 1978. Not surprisingly as in the Cold War, its odd shaped, earthquake-resistant construction draw attentions from Turkey across the Black Sea as well as the United States, who suspected that the structure could be some sort of rocket launcher or missile silo. 

You can find out more from an article at Architectuul.com with a gallery of 14 photos and drawings. Sebastian Waack from Waack.org also wrote a fascinating story about it. For current availability and pricing, you can visit their reservation web site online.

  

View Larger Map