There’s a strange power in old postcards https://oldpostcards.biz/en/. They don’t shout. They don’t explain themselves. They just sit there, slightly yellowed, slightly imperfect, carrying more weight than they should for such a small piece of paper.
I’ve noticed this thing. You open a scan, just one, and suddenly you slow down. A landscape from the USSR — wide, calm, almost too quiet. Forests without people. Rivers without captions. Nature as it was shown then: serious, steady, not trying to impress anyone. It feels different from modern imagery. Less polished. More stubborn.
City views hit in another way. Old streets. Squares that look unfinished. Buildings that seem permanent, as if they were never meant to change. No ads. No noise. Just architecture and space. You don’t need to know the exact year. You feel it anyway.
And then there are children’s postcards. Those illustrations are something else. Slightly awkward smiles. Carefully drawn winter scenes. A mix of warmth and discipline that feels very specific. Not cute in a modern sense. Honest. Sometimes even uncomfortable. But real.