The Presidential Library marking Russian Post Day

Annually Russia celebrates Post Day on the second Sunday of July. This year the date falls on July 9.

The Presidential Library features rare materials about the history of the postal service in our country and, in particular, in St. Petersburg. The earliest documents date from the first half of the 19th century, for example, letters from the St. Petersburg postal director Konstantin Bulgakov to Count Arseniy Zakrevsky (1822–1831), Cases on the establishment of a stagecoach between St. Petersburg and Radzivilov (1827 and 1849), documents on the distribution days for the post during the cholera epidemic (1831), as well as rare editions.

According to historian Nikolai Sokolov in the book St. Petersburg Post under Peter the Great (1903), in the first decade of the existence of St. Petersburg there was no postal service in it, even the word “post” itself was understood differently than it is now.

In 1714 the "correct course of the post" was arranged between St. Petersburg and Moscow, Revel, Riga, Vyborg and Kronstadt. By decree of Peter I, an “ordinary” post office was established in St. Petersburg, “two days a week”, Monday and Friday, were appointed “postal days”, and from 1716 the Moscow-St. Petersburg postal line began to work. The St. Petersburg-Moscow postal route was the first in time of its construction and the most important in its significance by connecting the new capital with the inner counties and regions of Russia. Starting from the first quarter of the 18th century, new post branches began to be established more and more often.

In the capital, a "post yard" and a post office were opened, which later received the name of the St. Petersburg Post Office, and the postmaster was entrusted with their management. By the end of the reign of Peter the Great, the central administration of all the pits and post offices of the state was concentrated in St. Petersburg.

In the city itself, for posting personal letters, packages, invitation cards, senders had to hire special people, and institutions had to maintain a whole staff of messengers.

An experiment was designed to simplify intracity communication. It was proposed by the State Council and approved by Emperor Nicholas I on October 27, 1830. It was planned to open a special city post office at the post office, consisting of three officials. The "Regulations on the establishment of a city post in St. Petersburg" emphasized that it was created to deliver letters from one part of the city to another without investing money and things.

The first intracity post office in our country was launched 190 years ago, in 1833. Reception of letters was carried out in trading shops, and for collecting correspondence and posting it around the city, letter carriers from trustworthy people were hired. At first, 42 reception points operated in the city, and by the middle of 1834 their number was increased to 108.

Citizens could bring the correspondence necessary for sending to a working shop, pay money for sending it, and put it in a specially installed box. Three times a day, letter carriers (named to distinguish themselves from postmen who delivered long-distance correspondence) went around the shops and collected mail from boxes. Letters were then taken to the post office, sorted and distributed to addresses. Only men worked as letter carriers, because they had to travel many kilometers with a heavy bag on their shoulders.

When summing up the results of the “experiment”, it became clear that, in addition to convenience for citizens and organizations, the post office turned out to be a very profitable enterprise. In this regard, on September 24, 1835, Nicholas I approved the decision to leave the city post in the capital on a permanent basis.

It is worth noting that for the convenience of delivering correspondence to addressees, since 1834, houses in the city have received a single increasing numbering, counting from the waterways. Letters addressed to Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk began to be delivered from 1837 along the first railway in Russia.

Improvements to the postal service continued. From 1838, periodicals were delivered to subscribers. In December 1845, letters began to be accepted in large stores in the city, and to speed up the dispatch of correspondence, the St. Petersburg City Post issued pre-paid stamped envelopes into circulation, which laid the foundation for the first modern postal system. Soon, the services of shopkeepers were abandoned: mailboxes appeared in the city, and people no longer had to wait in line at the points for receiving letters. After another 10 years, postage stamps entered circulation.

All this time, the delivery of correspondence was still carried out by two different channels - internal post and long-distance post. The merging of functions took place only in 1858, when the “Regulations on the Posting of Domestic, Foreign and City Correspondence in St. Petersburg” were approved, in which the posting of nonresident and foreign correspondence was combined with the delivery of letters from the inner city post.

The studies, rare archival documents, including samples of stamped envelopes, and other materials on the history of postal business in Russia are available on the portal and in the remote access centers of the Presidential Library.