Church of the Sacred Heart of Christ, Samara, Russia

This card came in the mail today from Yana, who has her own very fine blog of her postcards and stamps.  This card features a photo by Pavel Vorobyov of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Christ, the only Roman Catholic church in the Volga region.  It was constructed in 1906; this photo was taken in 2001 during what looks like sunset on a foggy day.

(I notice that this is the very first card I’ve posted from Russia; all of my other “Russian” cards, both posted and not-yet-posted, were technically produced by the Soviet Union.)

I’m also very interested in the stamps on this card, especially the portrait of Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin, a Russian landscape painter who lived from 1832-1898 and is still well regarded today.  Click on the image to see a larger version.  (I’m very proud of myself — I was able to sound out “I. I. Shishkin” well enough to google him on the first try.)  Shishkin painted landscapes, not portraits; this portrait of him was done by Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy (whose name I also sounded out, thank you very much) in 1880.  Kramskoy had painted Shishkin once before, in 1873.