To Russia and From Russia, with postcards

I have two dispatches from the Postcrossing front on this Saturday evening.

This week, I received the above postcard from Russia resident Inna, who loves lollipops, carrots, detectives, and turtles. (I wonder if she knows about Kojak?) The artwork on the card is the creation of Sasha Kulakova. This is Inna's message, written in perfect handwriting:

Hello Chris,
The card shows a children's folk tale. In the story, a grandfather (dedka) plants a turnip, which grows so big that he can't pull it up himself. He asks grandmother (babka) for help. Then they call granddaughter (vnuchka), a dog (zhuchka), a cat (koshka) and a mouse (myshka), one by one, until the finally pull the turnip up — together.

This beloved tale about the importance and power of collaboration is known as "The Gigantic Turnip" or "The Enormous Turnip."

* * *
Meanwhile, a postcard that I mailed to Russia finally arrived this week, and I learned via an email confirmation that it took a circuitous route. Here is Pavel's explanation, in slightly broken English, of what happened:

"Hey. Your postcard had an entire adventure, the address where the apartment number was indicated was blurred, probably by rain. The postcard came to my house, but in another podezd [apartment building?], and by chance through acquaintances we found out that one person is wondering if you do not know the recipient (that is me). And by chance this man asked a neighbor in the garage where I live, and this neighbor knew me. So the postcard a little bit and could not reach me. And for the postcard, thank you very much, very beautiful, and it was very interesting to read, and thanks to you I learned about Ruth Manning-Sanders."