Floating market - Thailand

This beautiful postcard came to me from Glen and Muey.
I had a couple of stamps dedicated to 50th anniversary of state visit of queen and king of Thailand to Pakistan and i thought that it would be very nice to send a postcard with this stamp to someone in Thailand. So i contacted several people and some of them liked my idea. Glen was one of those people and kindly agreed to swap with me. That's how i got this postcard.

The floating market in Rajburi. I have other postcards of this market but non of them looks so nice. It's all because of the water that looks like a liquid gold.

Glen also wrote that Bangkok used to be crisscrosed by many canals like the one on the postcard and so gained the name "Venice of the East" But today most have been filled in and converted into streets. My home town Saint Petersburg is sometimes called "The Venice of the North")))

Persepolis - Iran

Persepolis is situated 70 km northeast of the modern city of Shiraz, Iran.

Persepolis was the capital of the Persian kingdom. To the ancient Persians the city was known as Parsa (The City of Persians). Persepolis is a transliteration of the Greek name of the city which means: "Persian city"

According to Diodorus Persepolis was the richest city under the sun and the private houses had been furnished with every sort of wealth over the years…many of the houses belonged to the common people and were abundantly supplied with furniture and wearing apparel of every kind….

The bas-relief in the public hall of Darius, where The King of Kings received the tribute from all the nations in the Achaemenid Empire on the New Year occasions and gave presents in return, depicts Darius sitting on his throne with a monarchic stick in his right hand and a lotus with two buds in his left hand. The details of his clothes and throne as well as parts of the fine vessels in front of the king can be seen very delicately and precisely. All the relief works were done on dark-grey marble and were painted in ancient times. Apart from that the walls were tiled and decorated with pictures of lions, bulls, and flowers.

a postcard showing detail of Darius Public Hall bas-relief in the eastern staircase of Apadana Palace

Darius on his throne with the crown prince Xerxes

Stone Village Houses of Assos - Turkey

What we’ve got here….It’s Assos again, a city where Aristotle used to live for a while.

Thank you Deniz once again!!!! :-)

I couldn't find much about this particular place. As far as I understand  this postcard shows nicely crafted and decorated stone houses  set upon a mountainside overlooking the sea. The whole place is made of stone, some houses are old and some new but built the same.

Do you know how i love stone cottages? Well it's my second dreamhouse - a stone cottage on a narrow stone street))))

Russian blinis with caviar

I LOVE CAVIAR...salmon roe most of all...so i love this postcard.

To tell the truth i was very surprised to see a postcard like this because it's not something that the Russian bookstores are filled with.  You'll find tons of cityviews and some art postcards but for some reason you won't see any postcard showing the map of Russia, Russian flag or matreshka and stuff.
Juliana from Novosibirsk sent me this postcard and i have to thank her a lot for it.

Khao Phing Kan - Thailand

One of my longtime wishpostcards that finally came to me from Chile. Thank you Ignacio!!!!!
This rock is located in the area of Phang Nga bay in Thailand (not far from Phuket). It's known to the people of Thailand as Tapu Island or Nail Island.
But since it was featured in the James Bond movie "The Man with the Golden Gun" in 1974 the island is popularly called James Bond Island.
James Bond and Francisco Scaramaga were standing infront of it when started their decisive duel. I have to admit that from all villains this million-dollar hitman is my favorite.

James Bond: You live well, Scaramanga.
Francisco Scaramanga: At a million dollars a contract I can afford to, Mr Bond. You work for peanuts, a hearty well done from her Majesty the Queen and a pittance of a pension. Apart from that we are the same. To us, Mr Bond, we are the best.
James Bond: There's a useful four letter word, and you're full of it.