Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Telšiai 1928



This is a registered mail sent in 1928 from Telšiai to Viekšniai. Telšiai is a town with a population of approximately 30000 today. Since 1926, it hosts the seat of the bishop of the Diocese of Telšiai headed by the first bishop Justinas Staugaitis who is also one of the 20 signatories to the Act of Independence of Lithuania. Žemaitija had a diocese in Varniai but later it was moved to Kaunas. When Kaunas was elevated to an archdiocese in 1926, two dioceses were created in it, Vilkaviškis and Telšiai. Later in 1997, the Diocese of Šiauliai was also created, so there are three dioceses in the archbishopric of Kaunas today.
Viekšniai is a smaller town with a population of 2300, also located in Žemaitija. For some reason, there is no arrival cancel of Viekšniai on the back of the cover unfortunately.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Veisiejai 1936



This is a registered cover sent in 1936 from Veisiejai to Alytus. Like the cover of Veisiejai during the German occupation I have posted before in this blog, the postmark is "Veisejai" instead of Veisiejai, but the registration label has a correct modern spelling. Nice arrival cancellation of Alytus can be seen on the back of the cover, as well as the old spelling "Veisėjai" written by the sender. Veisiejai (Wiejsieje in polish) is known to be the place where the Esperanto language has been given birth by a Białystok/Balstogė ophthalmologist Zamenhof while he worked here.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Vilnius 1939



I recently got this cover by an exchange which I'm very happy about. It is a cover sent in 1939 from Vilnius 10 to Taujėnai. The address tells you that Taujėnai is in Ukmergės apskritis (Ukmergė county) but this county ceased to exist in 1950 according to Wikipedia and the town is now part of Vilniaus apskritis (Vilnius county). There is an arrival cancellation of Taujėnai on the back of the cover.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Cancellations of the Railway post - 01

Bahnpost (Railway post) ZUG 10 Insterburg (now Черняховск/Chernyakhovsk, Russia) - Memel (now Klaipėda, Lithuania) 1922, during the Memelgebiet period under the French administration.

P.V. (pašto vagonas) Nr. 20 Smalininkai (former Schmalleningken, Memelgebiet) - Pagėgiai (former Pogegen, Memelgebiet) 1928, during the Lithuanian First Republic.

Railway post Warszawa - Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania) 1938, during the Polish occupation of Vilnius region.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Juodupė 1990



This is a cover sent from Juodupė in 1990 to the UK. One of the things I was underestimating was that I thought it would be relatively easy to collect post-Soviet provisional postmarks but I must say I was wrong. Large towns are indeed not so hard but Juodupė class towns are somehow not so easy. The postmark is made out of the Soviet one, excluding the inscriptions indicating CCCP, but the Soviet stamps and postal stationery were still valid at that time.