The Ukrainian 2011 Europa Stamp That Was Cancelled.

The 2011 Europa stamp theme was "Forests."

Ukraine was supposed to issue the following stamp design in mid 2011:



That design was cancelled for some reason and replaced with this design, which was issued much later in the year:



I like the new forests design much better.

What's interesting is that Ukraine issues the Europa stamps every year in both sheet and booklet form. 2011 was the only year where a booklet was not issued.

Probably some hesitation to depict alien astronauts planting trees...

Hey, don't judge! You don't know that alien astronauts weren't sent here to teach us about ecology in the distant past! :-)

However, alien astronauts could be offended by Ukraine's decision to replace their likeness with trees :)

That is the first thing I thought too when I saw the stamps!