Esperanto in early Bolshevik Russia

As would-be world revolutionaries, the early Bolsheviks were sympathetic to Esperanto. It provided a means of international communication before the hegemony of English was established. Since Esperanto is basically a Romance language with a Roman alphabet, Russians who used it were making a bigger effort than those they were writing to. In any case, as Leninism turned to Stalinism, Esperanto fell out of favour as did any kind of private international communication even through authorised channels. This can be seen for example, in the decline of Philatelic Exchange letters in the 1930s. Private individuals were simply too afraid to send them.

The card below caught my attention first because of its date. It was sent from Petrograd to Switzerland in May 1921 and arrived the same month - the receiver mark is on the picture side. So it was sent within the scarce 1920 - 21 period when foreign mail services had just re-started. They were all suspended in January 1919 and resumed in June 1920. It's a registered  postcard and as seems to be normally the case, it is franked at the registered letter rate of 10 roubles using a 10 kop stamp revlaued according to the March 1920 x 100 revaluations.

But then I looked at the Esperanto Star and Flag printed in pale ink on the card and realised that this is in fact an old Imperial formular card which has been recycled with these symbols on the address side and Zamenhof's picture on the correspondence side. All Imperial postal stationeries with a face value were invalidated on 1 January 1919 but continued in use as blanks, as did formulars without a face value.There were huge quantities available and the practice of overprinting them was common in the early Soviet period. The dealer Tarasoff did it in Archangel and the Soviet Philatelic Association did it in Moscow. You could probably make an interesting collection of all the different overprints, say from 1917 through to 1925 or so.

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I have taken the following from the Comments section below:

Bill Chapman10 February 2017 at 05:48

The sender of this card is of interest to me. S.N.Podkaminer (1901-1982) was an aircraft engineer by profession, He also worked as a college lecturer. As a Red Army volunteer he took part in the civil and Great Patriotic wars. Having learned Esperanto in 1920, the young Semyon Podkaminer immediately became active in the movement. He took part in the 3rd Russian Congress of Esperanto, at which the Soviet Esperanto Union (SEU) was founded, then he led their youth section, and was repeatedly elected as a member of the Central Committee of the SEU. In 1926 he was secretary of the 6th Congress of a left-wing body called SAT in Leningrad, when special stamps were published. When in the late 30's Stalin undertook purges against speakers of Esperanto, he was fortunate enough to avoid arrest, but was expelled from the Communist Party.

This card was sent when he was 20 years old and relatively new to the language. In it he appeals for people who want to correspond with him about political and other matters.

The original card was oprobably produced in 1912 on the 25th anniversary of Esperanto.

An Important Item of RSFSR Mail Abroad 1920

IN June 1920, The RSFSR re-introduced foreign mail services which had been suspended in January 1919. Unregistered cards and letters could be sent post free. The card shown below is the earliest item of such 1920 mail that I have been able to find. It was posted in Petrograd on 9 June 1920 and though the Kerensky 20 kopeck is cancelled, the card is in fact used as a blank.Perhaps because of the rather confused address, it did a tour of Petrograd with further cancels of 10 and 12 June before finding its way to the Censor's office where a violet three triangle mark was applied on 14 June (see the bottom of the card)

The card is addressed to the largest Russian Orthodox community on Mont Athos, the Andreevsky (St Andrews) Sekte - in reality, a monastery but called a "Sekte" because it was created too late to qualify for monastery status. Before 1914, several hundred monks lived there, and the large buildings still exist. 

The card would have travelled up to Archangel / Murmansk and then across the White Sea to Vardo in northern Norway, then down through Norway for onward transmission. This was the only route out of Bolshevik Russia available in June 1920. This is no doubt a main reason why it took until 11 February 1921 for this card to arrive at St Andrews, an arrival indicated by the violet cachet at the top of the card. The confused address has been clarified, probably on arrival in Greece, with a red annotation in Greek which abbreviates the Greek Agion Oros for "Holy Mountain" in order to indicate the destination.

Mail from Bolshevik Russia going abroad in the second half of 1920 is rare. This early item is particularly nice. Added 9 July: Alexander Epstein has posted a Comment below which adds further information.

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British readers (in particular) might like to know that Mount Athos though part of Greece and therefore part of the European Union is exempt from the EU's "Free Movement" requirements - this is written in to Greece's accession treaty. A visa is required to visit and you must be male and preferably Orthodox to get one.

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Alexander Epstein has kindly provided scans of the May 1920 Luga item to which he refers in his Comment. Here they are. You can see that the item has gone from Luga to Petrograd and been delayed there until 26 June before being sent on to Estonia, but with no markings to indicate the route. This items would also have qualified for Free Post and the Kerensky 20 kop card is again used as a blank:

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Vasilis Opsimos has submitted an interesting item from June 1920, a Registered letter from Petrograd with multiple cancellations of 12 June, arriving three months later in Koenigsberg with a typical boxed violet M.P.k  Koenigsberg Censor mark and an arrival cancellation. BUT the franking is a mystery. The new Foreign Tariff specified 10 roubles for a Registered letter. Since 5 kopeck stamps were revalued x 100 in the Spring of 1920, this cover is franked at 50 roubles. Suppose the clerk forgot the revaluation, then 50 kopecks is not a Tariff either. The only explanation I can think of is that the sender put the stamps on before going to the post office, thought they added to 50 kopecks and remembered that this was the Internal Registered letter rate in 1919 .... But I am not convinced by my own story.

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RSFSR Mail Abroad 1919 - 1921: More Fun than Sudoku

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It's a wet day here and I have been writing up a small collection of Soviet mail abroad for the 1919 - 1921 period. It's very difficult to find any mail abroad for this period and what you do find is often puzzling. Sometimes I give up and consult Alexander Epstein,

Today, I left to last the real headbanger items, like the one above. But it can be understood even if it leaves a puzzle.

The sender has folded a sheet of lined paper into an envelope. He or she has then written the address in Cyrillic at the top and Roman at the bottom but upside down - but from folds in the envelope it looks as if it was originally posted folded in half:

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The letter is addressed to Jos Skopal, cetnicky strazmistr [Google gives me "gendarme", so "policeman"], Kelc i Hranic-Morava, Ceskoslovensko. The cancellation top right on the first image shows that it was sent from IKOVSKOE in Tobolsk on 23 November 1921. Google gives me ONE result for "Ikovskoe" - it's a village east of Chelyabinsk, from which I guess that Jos Skopal was once a Czech Prisoner of War in the region.

Anyway, the letter picked up a DOPLATIT IKOVSKOE TOBOL oval postage due cachet without any indication of how much postage was due. But since there are no stamps on the cover and never seem to have been the Postage Due should have been a massive 10 000 roubles, the ordinary foreign letter rate having been increased to 5000 roubles (from 1000 roubles) two days before this letter was sent.

The letter travels to Moscow where it gets cancelled three times: with an oval Three Triangle censor cachet dated 3 12 21, with a circular MOSKVA 1 EXSP 4 12 21 - both these on the second image above - and with a MOSKVA roller cancel 3 12 21 and probably applied first and shown on the first image above. 

Now in a thoroughly messy and partly illegible condition the letter travelled on - and made it to Kelc where it was very cleanly cancelled KELC CSR 19 XII 21. But no evidence that the Czechs did anything about the Postage Due. Maybe Josef Skopal was well-known to the post office. 

Anyway, I now have an account of this letter and now I need a drink and will reflect on the fact that sometimes the letters you think will never arrive do arrive.

Russia: Foreign Mail Tariffs in 1920 - 1921

From 30 September 1920, all mail sent from Bolshevik Russia to foreign destinations had to be franked - the Free Post for foreign mail was abolished. Letters were charged at 5 roubles for an ordinary letter and 10 roubles for Registered. This Tariff persisted into 1921 and was not formally changed until 25 August 1921 when a new Tariff of 1000 roubles for ordinary letters and 2000 roubles for Registered mail was introduced. I am using here data from Alexander Epstein's publications.

But as is so often the case, the old Tariff was remarkably persistent. Here are three registered letters from Petrograd in August 1921, one before the Tariff change (10th), one on the day of the change (25th) and one a few days later (30th). You would expect post offices in Petrograd to know what they were supposed to be doing, and even if the stamps on the second and third letters have been silently revalued  x 100, they are still franked at the old rather than the new rate:

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The next two examples of 10 rouble mail from earlier in the year (April and May) helpfully show how Registered mail was routed through Berlin. The April cover from Tambov to France has picked up a Registration label in Berlin and the May cover Syzran to the USA has got a violet Berlin Auslandstelle cachet - upside down at the bottom of the cover - which (I think) says that it has been received from abroad as registered mail:

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I would also like to make a study of postcards abroad in 1920 - 1921 but I don't have very many. So if you have any for sale, let me know at trevor@trevorpateman.co.uk

21 August 2014: Alexander Epstein comments:  I have studied this matter of RSFSR foreign rates in 1920 - 21 in detail and collected a lot of information concerning the existing covers. I described my conclusions in an article in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Russische Philatelie #94. You can also find it  in English at:  http://www.arge-russland.de/1634328.htm. Since then I have continued to expand the data base. I published an updated version of this article in Russian (Journal RUS).  The matter was very complicated in 1921 on the local level. I would like to add also that there was  official permission from the Central Postal Administration to use the old 1921 tariffs (instead of those of 25 August) till October (!) while post offices were waiting for the delivery of the new Arts and Industry stamps.