The Ukrainian Trains of the 1920s

When the Kiryushkin & Robinson book on Imperial Russian Railway postmarks came out, many years ago, it was a huge step forward for all collectors of such postmarks, but for us who like looking beyond 1917, it wasn't much help. Soviet railway postmarks - particularly the postmarks of the 1920s - are mostly unexplored territory, and I don't know of any literature on the subject that is much help. (and if you, kind reader, do know of something, I'm all ears)
A few general trends are visible. The familiar oval postmarks stuck around for most of the 1920s, but more and more circular postmarks start appearing. In some of the union republics, bilingual postmarks come into being (I've seen Russian/Belarusian postmarks and no doubt others exist). And of course, route number assignations continue to change, just as they did in Imperial times. I have a list that attempts to extend the K&R list to 1945 but it's based on a spotty selection of postal lists so it's not very accurate.

Ukraine created a wholly new category of railways postmarks: the All-Ukrainian postmarks. These are postmarks that are wholly in Ukrainian, with not a sign of Russian, and they do not mention termini, being inscribed POSHT. (number) VAG. I've seen about half a dozen examples over the years - they're not common - from routes 47/48, 67/68 and 177/178. Here are a few examples:

Line 47 is also represented in a second group of odd postmarks. These are bilingual, Ukrainian/Russian, but their text is so sparse you don't really notice! Two examples:

I can't help but wonder if this was a uniquely Ukrainian way of sabotaging the imposition of Russian: reduce the postmark text so drastically that it becomes irrelevant if it's in Russian or Ukrainian.

All this is fun to collect, but they are really only small signs of a huge, bitter and lethal struggle going on in the Ukrainian SSR for the definition of what it meant to be a Ukrainian Soviet citizen: how much Ukrainian nationalism was allowed? People died over this, with the late-1920s purge of "nationalist deviationists" claiming thousands of victims.

But for a philatelist, it's fascinating!

Stories behind covers: Crimea 1918-1920

Sadly, the Crimea is in the news for all the wrong reasons at the moment. It's interesting to see because for years I felt I was the only person on the planet to be interested in the Crimea, but here we are... It makes me look at my Crimean covers with new eyes, I can tell you! Next month I'm exhibiting "Big trouble in little Crimea, 1918-1921" as a 1-framer at Westpex, so I'm in the middle of looking at, thinking about and describing of Crimean Civil war period covers. They're ALL interesting. Here's a 1918 example I really like:

July 1918, Sudak to Koreiz, via Yalta. Franked with the 25k rate that seems to have prevailed in Ukraine, the Crimea, Bessarabia, the Don Cossack area and the Kuban Cossack area, and probably a few more places I've forgotten. An internal cover from the middle of the Sul'kevich period, from one small place to another. Wonderful!

Here's a 1919 example that makes me smile:

April 1919, from Koreiz to Moscow, where it arrived on May 3. A very scarce sending from the short-lived Second Soviet Crimean period (April-June 1919), and sent during a brief-ish moment when mail to Moscow was possible. The 35k rate is a holdover from the previous, White administration: if these Crimean Soviets had been true Soviets it would have been sent post-free.

1920 is the really interesting year, mostly because 1920 mail from Crimea is so scarce. Here's one that continues to puzzle me:

There are three possible interpretations of this cover, depending on which postal rate you think was in force at the time. First, if you think the 70k letter rate was in force, this is either a 13-fold weight letter (13x70+70=9.80) or just a nonsense overfranking.

Second, if you think there was a short-lived 1-ruble rate in Crimea at this time (and I do believe that), then this is an 9-fold weight letter (9x1.00+1.00). 

Finally, if you think this letter belongs to the 5-ruble rate period, then this is simply a registered letter, correctly franked. However, I believe Alexander Epstein when he says this rate was introduced later, in June of 1920, and the postmark says April. 

There is a clue on the reverse:

A censor marking like this suggests Summer 1920 very strongly. So I'm inclined to think this is one of those cases where the date in the postmark is simply an error, and this letter was sent in June, July or even August 1920. Probably not much later since that 5R rate used up stamps quickly.

Is it any wonder I love the Civil War period of the Crimea?