Imperial Russian Mail to Mont Athos

In the decades before World War One, the Orthodox Russian presence on Mont Athos grew considerably and there were probably more Russian than Greek monks there by the end of the period. Things changed once Greece took control of Athos from Ottoman Turkey in 1912 - 1913 and as Russia itself descended into Civil War.

The Orthodox Russian community was centred on the Andreevski Sikt / Sekte - basically a monastery but technically not eligible for that title. There was an Ottoman post office on Athos and from the 1890's a ROPIT post office.

Mail from Russia to Athos seems always to have been routed via Odessa and this fact is explicit on nearly all the mail one sees. After that, mail was  sent by sea to Constantinople and then by land to Athos. Despite the fact that Athos was clearly part of Ottoman Turkey there seems to have been some confusion about mail franking with correspondents using Russian internal tariffs and then getting charged Postage Due - or not.

Most of the mail one sees comprises Money Letters with elaborate addresses and manuscript markings not always easy to interpret. So I was pleased to come across a piece of mail which at first sight could hardly be simpler, though it does soon get more complicated:

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This is an ordinary letter which started out in Tver guberniya in a small community which today appears to be written in English as MOSHKI. It is located due south of TORZHOK, a larger town.

This letter started out in Moshki and bears a Free Frank privilege seal on the reverse which spells out that the privilege is being claimed by the Volost of Moshki's Starshina [head man] and further locates Moshki in NOVO-TORZHOK Uezd [district]. "Novo-" is a bit puzzling since the Imperial cancellation on the front of the envelope reads simply TORZHOK TVER and modern maps know only a Torzhok. So maybe Staraya Torzhok was something which existed only in memory 

Anyway, in addition to his free frank seal, the Starshina applied a violet cachet on the front which simply says MOSHKI VOLOST STARSHINA to the left of which is the essential Registry number always written bottom left to complete the claim to Free Frank Privilege.

The Starshina may have had a postman or courier to take his letter to Torzhok or maybe he went to the Imperial post office himself. On this the cover is silent. But from Torzhok the cover did indeed make it to Odessa on 26 October 1905, just over a week after despatch from Torzhok. It is addressed to the Andreevski Sikt and I am sure did get there since the cover is in an accumulation of Athos material.

What happens after Odessa is not shown by any marking which is unusual. On the front in the middle of the cover there is a smudge of violet ink. in which I am tempted to see a date - in which case it could be the trace of a ROPIT AFON postmark. or a ROPIT Constantinople. Under high magnification the latter is possible with adate in the middle which includes a 2 and a 1 and letters which could include a C, A and O 

What is perhaps most interesting about this cover is that a Volost Starshina's Free Frank privilege carried a letter all the way to what was at least technically a foreign destination

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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