Founded in 1929 as Khibinogorsk, the name that it wore until 1934, Kirovsk is a town located at the spurs of the Khibiny Mountains on the shores of the Lake Bolshoy Vudyavr, 175km south of Murmansk, on the Arctic Circle. Its occurrence was due to the expedition led by Alexander Fersman in 1920s, which discovered large deposits of apatite and nepheline. By the end of 1930, its population grew to ten thousand people, and a mining and chemical plant was under construction. It was renamed after Sergei Kirov, a prominent early Bolshevik leader killed in 1934 by a gunman at his offices in the Smolny Institute. Now, the population of Kirovsk it's about 29,000.
About the stamps
The first stamp is one of the two issued on January 8, 2003, to celebrate the birth centenary of two famous russian scientists:
• Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (1903-1960) - nuclear physicist who was director of the Soviet atomic bomb project (2.50 RUB) - it's on the postcard
• Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov (1903-1994) - inventor of anti-mine demagnetising of ships, and naval nuclear reactors (2.50 RUB)
The second stamp was issued on March 17, 2008, to celebrate the birth centenary of Valentin Petrovich Glushko (1908-1989), the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.
The third stamp is part of the first set of the series The History of the Russian Uniform, about which I wrote here. The last stamp is part of a definitives series, about which I wrote here.
References
Kirovsk, Murmansk Oblast - Wikipedia
Sender: Alexander / Tempano (postcrossing)
Sent from Kirovsk (Murmansk Oblast / Russia), on 07.09.2014
Photo: Mikhail Slavin / 2009.
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