In World War One, the
Ottoman Empire was one of the defeated powers and its capital, Constantinople,
was occupied by the victorious allies – France, Great Britain, Italy. But for
the Russian Revolution, Russia would have been there too. Even if Russia was
not, Russians were: “White” Russians who had the sympathies of the victorious
Allies could make their way across the Black Sea and seek refuge in
Constantinople. Many did.
Until end 1920, the
Civil War in Russia continued with White forces still controlling areas in the
south and mainly around the Black Sea. It was even possible to send mail abroad
from White areas and that mail went via Constantinople, where an improvised
Russian Post (not ROPIT) based in the Pera district received it and transferred
it to the Turkish postal system. A transit mark was genuinely used on such mail
and I have illustrated it on this Blog on 8 October 2016 - thereis a lot of background information there.
When the last White
forces evacuated from Crimea at end 1920, there was no more mail for transit.
But there were now many more refugees in Turkey. Someone had the idea that a
Russian Refugee Post could replace the Russian Post and, though it did not
happen, an elaborate scam did happen, headed up by Alexander Sredinsky, the
existing Postmaster who later became the stamp dealer Thals in Paris.
You could write to
Sredinsky in Constantinople using normal mail services and you could use the
address of “La Poste Russe” and it would get to him. He would apply a receiver
cancel to his own mail, for which purpose he used violet ink and a cachet which
was once a Russian Army Sanitary department seal. See the illustration. Note
that the letter from BELGRADE 23 XII 20 has been handled first in Galata and
then in Pera. The sender seems to have given up trying to use a typewriter
which clearly did not work:
Click on Image to Magnify
But you could not take a letter to Sredinsky and have it sent through the Russian Post,
nor could you do that in any of the refugee camps around Constantinople. But an
elaborate scam tried to prove that you could. Here for example, is a book of
Registration receipts supposedly used at Gallipoli. It contains 199 receipts.
Of these, 196 have been filled out and the KVITANTSIA part at the right removed
and supposedly given to the sender. Three complete unused forms remain at the
end.
Click on Image to Magnify
Remarkably, there exist
letters which correspond to the receipt book. Here is one with its No. 108
Kvitansia attached and which matches the half coupon remaining in the Receipt
book. Amazing. But the fact that the Kvitansia is attached to the April 1921
cover is the give away: this is what you did in those days with a philatelic
cover which you had fabricated, normally slipping the receipt inside the
letter as proof of its original posting. Serebrakian did it with the letters he sent from Yerevan to his brother
in Tiflis. It implies, at the very least, that the letter was not sealed until
it had been Registered. In this case, I don't believe the letter was ever in Gallipoli or carried from there to Constantinople. But a big effort has been made to convince me - and many people were convinced. The stamps of the Refugee Post got into all the catalogues and commanded high prices before 1940.
Click on Image to Magnify
In my view, this letter
started out on Sredinsky’s desk in Constantinople where both the GALLIPOLI
despatch cancel and the CONSTANTINOPLE
arrival cancel were applied. But what a remarkable effort to convince us otherwise:
a 199 coupon Registration receipt book!
More to follow ...
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