USSR 1954 – Pulkovo Observatory reopening
Pulkovo Observatory is some 19 km south of St Petersburg, Russia, and takes its
name from the chain of hills called the Pulkovskiye Heights on which it lies.
Opened in 1839, the observatory soon gained an international reputation for its
work on positional astronomy and double stars. Originally its largest telescope
was a 38-cm (15-inch) refractor, at that time the largest refractor in the
world, but in 1885 this was superseded by a 76-cm (30-inch). Neither of these
are in operation today, although the lenses remain. Destroyed during World War
II, Pulkovo Observatory was rebuilt and reopened in 1954, when this stamp was
issued.
The stamp depicts three of the observatory’s first five directors. At the centre is the first director, Friedrich Georg
Wilhelm von Struve (known in Russian as Vasily Yakovlevich Struve) (1793–1864), who served from 1839 to 1861; at left is Fyodor Aleksandrovich Bredikhin
(1831–1904) the third director, 1890–95; and at right is Aristarkh Apollonovich Belopolsky (1854–1934), fifth director, 1916–19. Bredikhin appears again on a USSR stamp issued in 1956.
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