OREANDA-NEWS. June 20, 2007. Saint Petersburg played great part in the history of development of post. First city post was opened in 1833, the first Russian stamp was issued 150 years ago. As noted L.D. Reiman, Minister for Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation all the dates make the exhibition particularly significant event not only for philately society but for all the citizens and guests of Saint Petersburg, reported the press-centre of  Russian Post.

Our city holds such event for the first time in life, stated V. Matvienko, Governor of Saint Petersburg on the opening ceremony and called this event a great honor for the city and holiday for all philatelists. "It’s important that the exhibition is called "Saint Petersburg" and a number of rare collectionsи is represented at it", as she noted. Each exhibit is unique, each stamp has its interesting history.

L. Reiman, V. Matvienko, J. Wolff, President of International Philately Association, E. Dayan, Director General of International Bureau of Universal Postal Union, I. Syrtsov, Director General of FSUE Russian Post and V. Gorbatko, President of Russian Philately Union opened philately exhibition "Saint Petersburg – 2007" on 20th of June 2007 in a festive atmosphere.

The best philatelist collections from almost 70 countries of the world are represented by 3 000 stands. The exhibit’s expositions are focused on both traditional philately and its history in different continents. All of them are divided in Russian, European, American collections and ones of Asia, Oceania and Africa countries. The expositions are divided into classes of airphilately, astrophilately, stands devoted to nature, culture, science and technique. There will be a great number of collections represented in three age groups: from 13 to 15 years, from 16 to 18 years and from19 to 21 years.

The exhibit contains 13 collections of Champion Class won Big Gold Medals three times at the World Exhibitions. They will be the prior applicants for the main awards – National Grand-Prix (award on the materials of country-arranger) and International Grand-Prix (award on the material of foreign states). World-famous collectors of stamps – Igor Gorskiy (Russia) with the stamp colleсtion "RSFSRР 1918 – 1923", Saverio Imperato (Italy) with the collection "Pontifical principalities", Yannik Deley (Belgium) with the collection "We need you railways", Nikolas Asimakopulis (USA) with the collection of Greek stamps of 1861-1886 "Big head of Hermes", Kvan Chyuk Yin William (Hong Kong) with the collection of stamps and envelopes of East China of 1942–1949 and other ones are among the applicants for the Grand-Prix.

The competent jury consisting of the representatives from over 30 countries is headed by A. Ilyushin, Doctor of Engineering, Professor of State Moscow University.