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!
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.
So, I’m trying it again. But I wanted to share this information now, because mid-June to September is a very short time span in snail mail terms, especially to remote places. And maybe someone else may want to try this too.
You can buy Russian stamps from the official issuer RusMarka at russtamp.com . Here are a few links to the Arctic-related stamps on that site:
And some more:
- Arctic high-latitude deep water expedition
- The 100th Anniversary of the Discovery of the Severnaya Zemlya Archipelago
- “Taimyr” Icebreaker
- “Yamal” Icebreaker
- “50-th anniversary of Victory” Icebreaker
- “Krassin” Icebreaker
- “Mikhail Ulyanov” tanker
If you are going to do this post a comment below, lets track how this goes for everybody.
