Anything Goes

Russian Post Tools: Support Bot in VK

VK Russian Post Bot

After being a target of multiple hacker attacks, Russian Post website disabled access to international visitors. This makes life a bit harder for collectors interested in mail items from Russia: tracking registered mail, including mail from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, finding current postal rates, checking mail exchange limitations between Russia and other countries, finding out post office address – you now need to find alternative, unofficial sources and tools for all these things, and hope they are up to date.

Here I want to share a way to get official info without getting a Russian VPN or looking for a person in Russia for help with this: official Russian Post support bot (with fallback to a human) in Russian social website VKonakte (VK).

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Interesting places in Russia to collect mail from

Many philatelists and postal history collectors like to receive mail from unique and interesting places: remote islands, south pole stations, mountain-peak mailboxes, underwater mailboxes, unrecognized countries, etc.

Russia is a whole World of its own! Highest peaks, oldest cities, remote islands, coldest places, disputed territories, exclaves, scientific stations, and much more! And many of these places have a post office : )

So, here’s some interesting places to collect from Russia! >>

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Printable Collection Lists

I noticed many collectors of Сountries, US states, UNESCO WH sites, and similar lists use printed or written lists of their collections to keep track of what they already have and what is still needed. For those who like to check boxes or cross out words on physical paper, I’ve made a couple of printable lists: FOTW collection and Russian Regions.

Russian Regions List 2024 — Russian Regions

FOTW Collection List (printable)

Printable list of all Flags of the World postcards available from postcardsmarket.com — a very popular type of postcard design to collect.

This list contains only countries available from the original site that came up with this collection, but there’s enough room to write-in any additional countries and regions that you may wat to collect.

Click here to open FOTW List full size version (A4 size)

Also see my other printable lists for collectors »

Russian Regions List (printable)

I’ve been asked, occasionally, by collectors to send mail (covers mostly) around Russia on their behalf, for their “Russian regions” collections, so I know it’s a “thing” for some philatelists, at least. I’m sure most people keep their lists in digital form, but for those who like to check boxes or cross out words on physical paper, I’ve made this printable list of all Russian Regions (actual as of early 2024).

Click here to open Russian Regions List full size version (A4 size)

Also see my other printable lists for collectors »

Friends: Lizu.Am – Hamshen Armenian dictionary

This post is not related to postcards, philately, or postal services.

Recently, I was helping a friend in his work on creation of Hamshen Armenian online dictionary, and in this post I just want to introduce the project. As postcards collectors, we learn a lot about remote places, foreign cultures, and history. So, this might be of some interest to visitors of this site.

Hamshen (or Hemshin) Armenians are an ethnic group, who are originally from Hemşin districts in the province of Rize, Turkey. Today numbering as many as 150,000, they live in Turkey, Russia (mostly my hometown of Sochi), and Abkhazia. Hamshen Armenians speak their own, archaic Western Armenian dialect – Homshetsma , and Аccording to the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages, the Hamshen dialect is classified as “Definitely endangered” (children no longer learn the language as a ‘mother tongue’ in the home). And this was a primary reason for creating this project — to help keep this language alive.

The project is a work in progress. It’s currently a Hamshen Armenian – Russian dictionary, but there are plans to expand it for English, include more reading and learning materials in this dialect, and to create features that would help to crowdsource / expand the dictionary base.

Please check it out, and read up on this small part of World’s history and culture.

Hamshen Armenian ethnic folklore dance postcard of the internetz.

Black Pyramid Mountain Post Box

TL;DR – There’s a postbox at the top of a mountain at 2375 м. I went for it a week ago, ~~but it’s probably too early to expect anything mailed from it yet (2021-09-27).~~ UPDATE 2021-10-11: Postcards are starting to arrive!

Sochi mountain postal box

As a postcrosser – and in general – I’m lucky to live in a city that it beautiful, touristy, hosted a wide variety of World class sporting events, interconnected with a UNESCO WHS, and borders a “rare” country. There were also many postage stamps issued dedicated to our city, events that took place here, our flora and fauna, which is also nice. All this is a great basis for postcard exchanges!

Last year I discovered yet another interesting and cool way to postcross: a postbox at the top of Black Pyramid mountain in our city! And a year later I decided to try it out.

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How to get your mail postmarked at Russia’s northernmost post office

Russia’s northernmost post office is located on the Hooker Island, which is part of the Franz Josef Land archipelago. It’s probably really hard to find someone who’s staying or going there, let alone convince them to send you mail. I’m not sure they have any stock of postcards at that post office, but they do have awesome postmark!

Franz Josef Land postmark

The most realistic way to receive mail from there, it seems, is to send prepared mail item with return address, and enough stamps. And here’s how you do this according to the Russian Post..

Send prepared cover or postcard to the following address. The mail item must have enough Russian postage stamps for it to be delivered from Russia to you.

Please note, that maritime traffic to the island is from mid-June until September.

Отделение Почты - Начальнику отделения
бухта Тихая, о-в Гукера 
Архипелаг Земля Франца-Иосифа, 1
Приморский район
Архангельская область
РОССИЯ
163110

Well, in 2020 I did this in January, and my postcards came back with very awesome clear postmarks. When I tried this again in winter of 2021, and again in spring, my envelope were returned with a note from Arkhangelsk that that post office is closed years ago. Confused, I wrote a question to Russian Post, and they replied with the above info.

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How to send mail to Transnistria

Transnistria (officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, and also called Pridnestrovie) is de facto independent, but an unrecognized country in Europe. It is squeezed between Moldova, which they fought against for independence, and Ukraine.

Transnistria does have it’s own postal system, and issues own stamps. But it only works inside the country. To send international mail Moldovan postal service is used (both domestic and Moldovan stamps are available in Transnistria’s postal offices). Same goes for incoming international mail.

So, if you want to send something to Transnistria, you should specify Moldova as a destination country. Otherwise it will not be delivered.

Postcard from Crimea, Russia

Received this cool postcard from Crimea, my first one from there, and it came via Postcrossing. And just now realized, that Russian postcrossers can send to and receive official postcards from Russia even with “you would like to send and receive postcards to and from your own country” option turned Off 🙂

Russian stamp and Russian Post postmark from Sevastopol, Crimea. UA postcrossing code:

Russia stamp

Russia Crimea postcard