Odessa 1918: Changing the Rules

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This innocent little card was written on 30 January and posted in Odessa on 31 January 1918 - incidentally, the last day of the Old Style calendar in Russia which then jumped forward to 14 February. Addressed to Helsinki, it has been franked at 8 kopecks - the correct Provisional Government  tariff for a foreign postcard, applied since 1 September 1917 and continued in the RSFSR until replaced by the Tariff of 10 March 1918.

So why has it attracted an Odessa Postage Due cachet, claiming 4 kopecks - indicating a deficiency of 2 kopecks in the franking? The answer is very simple: the post office has (just) adopted the first Ukrainian National Republic Tariff of 28 January which prices postcards, wherever they are going, at 10 kopecks.

Less simple is the answer to the question, Did it reach Helsinki? Well, in favour of that is the fact that the card was in a collection formed in Finland. And it's true that at this early stage of Ukrainian independence some mail exchange with Russia seems to have continued and Russia definitely continued exchanging mail with Finland - though delayed at this period by Finland's own Civil War. On the other hand, Finnish mail whether Registered or not usually picks up a Helsinki roller cancel on arrival and this card has nothing at all to indicate arrival.

Added February 2020: Most of my Ukraine-related Blog posts are now available in full colour book form. To find out more follow the link:

http://www.armeniazemstvo.com/2020/02/just-published-trevor-pateman.html

Routes Out of Russia 1917 - 1918: Odessa

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In war time, mail routes (inland, foreign or both) are disrupted just like every other aspect of civilian life. In addition, if mail going abroad is censored - as it normally is - it has to be transferred to censor offices. These tend to be centralised: censorship works partly by aggregating information from a large volume of mail and if there are just a few censor points information is aggregated from the start; it does not have to be collected in.

Anyone looking at Russian censored mail with foreign destinations will see Petrograd and Moscow marks dominating the censorship scene. Maybe 80% or 90% of mail for censoring was handled in those cities. But some mail going abroad was censored elsewhere, notably in port cities like Odessa and Baku - and then despatched by sea directly from those ports.

I was looking through a dozen items of mail going abroad censored in Odessa during 1917 - 1918. The letters originated in Odessa itself but also Ekaterinoslav (what is now Dnipropetrovsk) and Elisavetgrad (Kherson). They were going to Denmark,  England, Holland, Switzerland and the USA.

The cover illustrated above is particularly interesting because it shows part of the route this letter followed. Posted from ODESSA 10 11 17 ( a couple of weeks after the Bolshevik seizure of power in Petrograd) it was censored there, a fact recorded by the boxed violet cachet numbered 297. From a smudged cancel on the reverse, it then looks like the letter was sent on its way on the 11th. It then turns up in Milan where it was again censored - the white censor tape VERIFICATO PER CENSURA  is tied to the cover by strikes of the MILANO POSTA ESTERA cachet, front and back. Under the tape is a Milan arrival mark for which the date is not readable without lifting the censor tape. The letter then travelled down to Bologna (I assume - the route could have been the other way around) where it picked up a BOLOGNA POSTA ESTERA RACC. ASS. 1 3 18 registered mail cachet - nearly five months after its departure from Odessa! It makes better progress (overland?) to Copenhagen arriving there on 24 3 18 - the weak cancellation is on the reverse. At this time, most mail to Copenhagen is addressed to the Red Cross but this is a private or commercial letter.