Sochi 2014 sign deal to produce Olympic stamps

August 26 - The first series of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics stamps will be issued next January after a licensing agreement was signed with publishing and trading centre Marka.

Stamps will depict Sochi, its sports and tourist facilities and Olympic sports.

Olympic philately is rooted in the modern Olympics and was a means of attracting money and interest to the Games.

Organisers of  the first 1896 Athens Olympics faced financial difficulties and issued series of 12 stamps to save the situation.

More than four million stamps were printed and came into circulation on April 6, 1896.

Under a decree by the King of Greece, all postage had to be paid by these stamps during the following year.

The first Olympic stamps were a real object of art.

The designs, made by French Professor Gillieron, were based on ancient Greek art and architecture connected with the Games.

French engraver E. Mouchon created the steel matrixes for the stamps. Professor Svoronos, the head of the Athens Numismatic Museum, consulted the designers.

Russia and the Soviet Union began to use a sports theme in the mid 1930s to mark the 1928 All-Union Spartakiade.

The Soviet Union had its first Olympic stamps in 1960.

Since then it has been issuing stamps for every Olympics.