ESTONIA

A nice cover from Estonia, depicting a couple of stamps celebrating the town of Tallinn. Tallinn is the capital, the most populous and the primate city of Estonia. Located in the northern part of the country, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of about 440,000. Tallinn, first mentioned in 1154, received city rights in 1248, but the earliest human settlements date back 5,000 years. The first recorded claim over the land was laid by Denmark in 1219, after a successful raid of Lyndanisse led by King Valdemar II, followed by a period of alternating Scandinavian and Teutonic rulers. It was known one of the most important medieval port city centers in the Gulf of Finland together with Turku; due to its strategic location in the Baltic Sea, the city became a major trade hub, especially from the 14th to the 16th century, when it grew in importance as part of the Hanseatic League. Tallinn's Old Town in Kesklinn is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997.

INDIA

NEW ZEALAND

VIETNAM

SRI LANKA

BRAZIL

A cover from Brazil with a ministaure sheet celebrating 200 years of the Brazilian Senate, with 3 different stamps including the stamp on the right with a picture of the National Congress Palace in Brasilia. Brasília is the federal capital of Brazil and seat of government of the Federal District. The city is located at the top of the Brazilian highlands in the country's center-western region. It was founded by President Juscelino Kubitschek on April 21, 1960, to serve as the new national capital. Brasilia is estimated to be Brazil's third-most populous city.Brasilia was a planned city developed by Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer and Joaquim Cardozo in 1956 in a scheme to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a more central location. The landscape architect was Roberto Burle Marx. The city's design divides it into numbered blocks as well as sectors for specified activities, such as the Hotel Sector, the Banking Sector, and the Embassy Sector. Brasilia was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 due to its modernist architecture and uniquely artistic urban planning. It was named "City of Design" by UNESCO in October 2017 and has been part of the Creative Cities Network since then.

LITHUANIA

P. R. CHINA

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

A beautiful UNESCO cover from Russia, depicting a minisheet celebrating the Lake Baikal. The Lake Baikal is situated in southern Siberia, between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryatia to the southeast. Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, containing 22 to 23% of the world's fresh surface water. Lake Baikal has a maximum depth of 1,642 m and is the world's deepest lake. It is among the world's clearest lakes and is the world's oldest lake, at 25–30 million years. Lake Baikal is also the world's seventh-largest lake by surface area. Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, many of them endemic to the region. It is also home to Buryat tribes, who raise goats, camels, cattle, sheep, and horses on the eastern side of the lake, where the mean temperature varies from a winter minimum of −19 °C to a summer maximum of 14 °C. The region to the east of Lake Baikal is referred to as Transbaikalia or as the Transbaikal, and the loosely defined region around the lake itself is sometimes known as Baikalia. UNESCO declared Lake Baikal a World Heritage Site in 1996.

P. R. CHINA

POLAND

BRAZIL

This cover from Brazil depicts 2 se-tenant stamps celebrating 150 years of Elevator Lacerda,the oldest urban elevator in the world, located in Salvador de Bahia. The Historic Centre of Salvador de Bahia in Brazil, is a historic neighborhood in western Salvador, Bahia. It was the city's center during the Portuguese colonial period and was named for the whipping post in its central plaza where enslaved people from Africa were publicly beaten as punishment for alleged infractions. The Historic Centre is extremely rich in historical monuments dating from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Salvador was the first colonial capital of Brazil and the city is one of the oldest in the New World (founded in 1549 by Portuguese settlers). It was also one of the first slave markets on the continent, with slaves arriving to work on the sugar plantations. The area is in the older part of the upper city (Cidade Alta) of Salvador. It encompasses several blocks around the triangular Largo, and it is the location for music, dining and nightlife. It has a place on the national historic register and was named a world cultural center by UNESCO in 1985.