Zemsky post of Soroksky district

By 1877, the territory of the Soroksky district was served by three state post offices: in the city of Soroki , the town of Ataki (now the town of Otach) and the village of Keynar-Vek .

On October 20, 1877, by a resolution of the Zemstvo Council, adopted on the basis of a decision of the Zemstvo Assembly of October 12 of the same year, a Zemstvo administrative post was organized on the territory of the Soroksky Uyezd for sending private and official correspondence by county based on the model of Orhei Zemstvo mail .

March 26, 1879 the government decided:

Open the mail traffic from the fifth day of the next April of the month according to the established schedules for two paths - northern and southern ...

The first Zemstvo postmaster was appointed nobleman N. Kryzhanovsky with a maintenance of 400 rubles a year. From April 1, 1879, the Zemsky postmen approved: the honorary citizen G. Dubinsky, the tradesman P. Botezat, the retired clerk I. Duvanov, the peasant N. Valyan with an annual salary of 150 rubles each.

On April 5, 1879, the movement of zemstvo mail was opened along two equal routes in the southern and northern directions of the county. On the same day, Zemstvo stamps and labeled postal envelopes were issued for postal circulation.

Mail was sent from Forty on a schedule twice a week - on Monday and Thursday. 181 versts passed along the northern highway, covering 16 settlements: Badichany , Teleshovka , Arioneshty , Ataki, Klimousa , Korbul , Tsaul , Tyrnova , Brichevo , Mendik , Shur , Nadushita , Petrena , Izvory , Keynar-Veki, Okolina . 190 miles passed along the southern tract, covering 15 settlements: Solonets , Telemeuts , Vaskautsy , Kuchureshty , Rashkov , Kobylnya , Kotyuzhany , Tarbutskany , Chutulesti , Pepeny , Dragoneshty , Gura-Keynar , Floreshty , Izvora , Oyekolna . In the village of Izvory, postmen of both tracts met and arrived in the city of Soroki on the third day after departure.

Since January 1884, the zemstvo post office began delivering registered mail in the district without using zemstvo marks, but taking 6 kopecks from the lot upon delivery of the correspondence to the addressee .

On September 28, 1900, the Zemstvo Assembly, after hearing a council report on the operation of the post office and, in view of the statement by many members of the council about stopping the payment of private correspondence by postage stamps as burdensome for the population and bringing insignificant income, instructed the council to develop possible simplifications of the method of mailing. September 30, 1901 the government decided:

From this time, until 1909, postal items by zemstvo mail were delivered without the use of postage stamps.

On September 30, 1909, the government decided to "renew Zemstvo postage stamps for postcards at 3 kopecks and for closed letters at 5 kopeks and file a petition for this." Due to the fact that in the zemstvo postal office stamps of the previous type were preserved in 3 kopecks, the government, without initiating applications for permission to publish new stamps, again introduced old-style postage stamps. However, this experience also gave negative results, therefore, by a resolution of September 29, 1910, the government spoke in favor of abolishing the use of zemstvo postage stamps.

Free delivery to and from the county of letters and parcels , newspapers and magazines , parcels, and money transfers via Zemstvo mail paths in the Soroksky district continued until 1918 ^[1] .

Stamps for zemstvo mail of the Soroksky district began to be printed in 1878 in the Odessa printing house of A. Schulze. They depicted the Soroca fortress located above the banks of the Dniester , also depicted under the fortress. The first issue was subsequently reprinted in 1879, 1880 and 1883 with numerous differences in the details of the design of the external and internal frames of the brand, its color, perforation , on various types of paper, with numerous typographical defects and varieties .

In 1885, the Zemstvo government ordered a new model of the postage stamp at the Odessa printing house A. Schulze. A coat of arms was depicted on them in an internal oval: on a yellow background, a fortress with towers over a blue river. This type of stamp was reprinted three times in 1887, 1892 and 1898 with numerous differences.

The first whole things - labeled ( stamped ) envelopes - of the Sorokskoy Zemstvo postal office were also printed in the Odessa printing house of A. Schulze with a print run of 5000 copies. The cost of the envelope was 4 kopecks - 3 kopecks per shipment and 1 kopeck per envelope. The reissue of the labeled envelope was carried out in 1892.

The documents of the Soroksky district council mention the sale of stamp envelopes of zemstvo mail to collectors (by order of the latter) ^[2] .

All correspondence that passed through the zemstvo post was processed at the Soroksk zemstvo post office with special stamps . The first of them was made on February 22, 1879 by B. Rubinstein, a cutter of seals from Chisinau . The stamp was a double circle with a diameter of 30 mm with the text inside: “Sorokskoy Zemstvo Post” , in the middle of the circle - date on three lines, at the bottom of the stamp - two spruce branches. Various colors of mastic were used : gray, dark gray, grayish green, purple, black.

In 1885, in connection with the release of a new model of the Zemstvo postage stamp, the postal office began to use a new postmark. It was a double oval with a size of 39 × 24 mm with the text inside “Sorokskaya Zemskaya” and “Post Office” , between which hexagonal stars were placed, in the middle of the stamp the date is on one line. Black, dark gray and blue mastic was used.

Apparently, in the same year, registered stamps of volost post offices were introduced. They were a double oval 40 × 27 mm in size, with the text inside “Sorokskaya Zemstvo Post” and the name of the volost post office. In the middle of the stamp is a date in one line, on the sides of the oval there are five-pointed stars. Violet, black and gray-blue mastic was used. Before stamps were introduced, stamps on mail in volosts were extinguished by cross-shaped strikethrough.

With the withdrawal of zemstvo postage stamps from postal circulation in September 1901, the processing of correspondence by postmarks was stopped ^[1] .

In 1999, the Moldovan Post issued a postcard with the original stamp on the 120th anniversary of the Soroksk Zemstvo postage stamps. The postal stagecoach and the postal tracts of the Soroksky zemstvo were depicted on the card, and the postage stamp of the Soroksky zemstvo mail of the 1898 type was shown on the stamp. The author of the card design idea and the initiator of its release was Vladimir Babich, a researcher of zemstvo posts of the Bessarabian province ^{[3] [4]} .

• Soroksky district zemstvo post office // Large philatelic dictionary / N. I. Vladinets, L. I. Ilyichev, I. Ya. Levitas, P. F. Mazur, I. N. Merkulov, I. A. Morosanov, Yu. K. Myakota, S. A. Panasyan, Yu. M. Rudnikov, M. B. Slutsky, V. A. Jacobs; under the general. ed. N.I. Vladinets and V.A. Jacobs. - M .: Radio and communications, 1988 .-- 320 p. - 40,000 copies. - ISBN 5-256-00175-2 .

• Soroksky district (Bessarabian province) (neopr.) . Zemstvo. Story. Comments A remake of the catalog of F. G. Chuchin . Smolensky collector; V.A. Novosyolov. - An electronic book on the site of V. A. Novosyolov (Smolensk). Date of treatment March 8, 2010. Archived on April 19, 2012.