One little project that I was really looking forward to is going through approx. 1200 covers sent from various ex-USSR countries during the first three months of 1992: responses to a lottery organized by the "Voice of America" radio station. I like big bulky lots as you can actually do some simple statistics and you get a good feel for the range of postal phenomena. And who wouldn't like going through a pristine archive?
These covers are a little puzzling since they're all unopened. I don't know what the explanation is. Perhaps all these covers arrived after the deadline? It does make me a little sad to think that all these hopefuls were doomed to disappointment.
Let's start with the basics. Of the 1200 covers or so, mere handfuls are from Azerbaijan and Georgia. Armenia is a little better represented, with about a dozen covers. Central Asia varies from Kazakhstan (15) to Kyrgyzstan (1). Ukraine is inexplicably underrepresented with a mere 15 covers. Belarus shows up with 36 covers, and Moldova with 5. The three Baltic States have about 30 covers each. Everything else is Russia. Note that this geographical distribution simply reflects participation in the lottery, not some aspect of the postal systems in question.
Frankings are almost exclusively Soviet definitives (and Baltic definitives for the Baltic states, although even there you see a few late usages of Soviet stamps). The oddballs are the St.Petersburg surcharges, the Azeri use of radio stamps on one cover, and manuscript revaluations of Soviet definitives on four covers. The first Russian stamps also appear, sparingly.
(To be continued)
