Postcrossing?

The postal service of the Republic of Belarus recently issued a stamp entitled “Happy Postcrossing!”. Perhaps, like me, you haven’t heard the term before – if you have please ignore the following explanation.

What is postcrossing?

Postcrossing is an online project that began in 2005 and which allows its members to send and receive postcards from all over the world. The members, also known as Postcrossers, send postcards to other members and receive postcards back from other random Postcrossers. The project is completely free and anyone with an address can create an account. However, the postcards themselves and postage fees to mail them are the responsibility of each user. The first step is to request to send a postcard. The website will display, and send the member an e-mail with, the address of another Postcrosser and a Postcard ID (e.g.: US-787). The Postcard ID uniquely identifies that postcard in the system. The member then mails a postcard to that Postcrosser and writes the Postcard ID on it. The Postcrosser receives the postcard and registers it using the Postcard ID that is on the postcard. At this point, the member is eligible to receive a postcard from a different Postcrosser. As of the middle of 2013 it was estimated that around 405,000 Postcrossing members from 217 countries were active. You can see all Belarus stamps on our online catalogue here. In 2011 the Dutch mail issued this stamp-sheet dedicated to postcrossing.