QSL card for Pioneers Radio Club of Tallinn, Estonia

OK, it's silly that this is my first QSL card post in nearly four years. Time flies! If this piques your hobby interests, please check out the QSL cards category tag to see more than three dozen past Papergreat posts full of vintage ham radio correspondence grooviness. 

This nifty card, UR2KAN, which details a communication on October 1, 1973, features the Pioneers Radio Club of Tallinn, Estonia, USSR. Tallinn is the capital and most populous city of Estonia, which parted ways with the Soviet Union's occupation in August 1991. These days, in a disheartening sign of the times, Estonia is bolstering its defense capabilities and practicing for evacuations in the event that murderous Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't satisfied with merely attacking and occupying Ukraine.

We're mostly left to imagine what the Pioneers Radio Club was all about, unless we get a miraculous visit from a commenter. The only hints appear on a webpage on QRZ.com, which discusses a slice of Eastern European ham radio history from the perspective of Boris Gavrenko, who was born in the Soviet Union in 1933 and much later came to live in the United States. 

He states, in passing:

"In 1961 I met the gang of UR2KAN - UR2KAW (then the club call of a Tallinn Pioneer Palace in Estonia). It was their support and guidance that enabled the opening of the UB5ARTEK (later U5ARTEK) - All-Union International Pioneer camp in the Crimea." 

 

It seems the Pioneers Radio Club may have been something of a youth group in Tallinn, but anything beyond that is a guess. But maybe someone will stumble upon this someday and tell us more.