Presidential Library marking World Post Day

World Post Day is celebrated annually on October 9.

The Presidential Library features rare materials about the history of the postal service in our country and in St. Petersburg in particular. The earliest documents date from the first half of the 19th century, for example, letters from St. Petersburg postal director Konstantin Bulgakov to Count Arseny Zakrevsky (1822–1831), Cases on the establishment of a stagecoach between St. Petersburg and Radzivilov (1827 and 1849), documents about the distribution days for mail during the cholera epidemic (1831), as well as rare book 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 1714, the “correct route of post service” began to be established 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 designated “post days”, and since 1716 the Moscow-St. Petersburg postal line was opened. The St. Petersburg-Moscow postal route was the first in its construction and the most important in its significance by connecting the new capital with the internal counties and regions of Russia. Starting from the first quarter of the 18th century, new postal lines began to be established more and more often. 

A “postal yard” and a post office were opened in the capital, which later received the name of the St. Petersburg Post Office; its management was entrusted to the postmaster. By the end of the reign of Peter the Great, central control of all the pits and post offices of the state was concentrated in St. Petersburg.

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

The 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 office 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 opened 190 years ago, in 1833. Letters were received in trading stores, and letter carriers from trustworthy people were hired to collect correspondence and distribute it around the city. At first, there were 42 reception centers in the city, and by mid-1834 their number was increased to 108.

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

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 intracity mail in the capital on a permanent basis.

It is worth noting that for the convenience of delivering correspondence to recipients, since 1834, houses in the city received a single increasing numbering, based on water arteries. Letters addressed to Tsarskoe Selo and Pavlovsk began to be delivered in 1837 via the first railway that opened in Russia.

Improvements to the postal service continued. Since 1838, periodicals began to be delivered to subscribers. In December 1845, letters began to be accepted in large stores in the city, and to speed up the sending of correspondence, the St. Petersburg City Post issued pre-paid stamped envelopes, 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 letter collection points. Another 10 years later, postage stamps came into circulation.

All this time, correspondence was delivered through two different channels - domestic post and intercity post. The unification of functions occurred only in 1858, when the “Regulations on the distribution of domestic, foreign and city correspondence in St. Petersburg” was approved, in which the distribution of nonresident and foreign correspondence was combined with the delivery of letters from intracity post. 

Research, 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.