Ukmergė 1943

Arrival cancel Freiburg (Breisgau) 1 on the back of the cover

This is a registered cover sent in 1943 from Ukmergė, Ostland to Freiburg i. Br. (im Breisgau), Germany. The German Dienstpost Ostland actually used the name Wilkomir and not Ukmergė but the regular post office kept using the old postmarker of the First Rupublic as you can see on this cover. The sender also puts his address as Ukmergė but the registration label provided by the Dienstpost states Wilkomir. Interesting... You can see that the sender is Lithuanian from his name and therefore, wasn't able to use the postal service of the Dienstpost since it was reserved to the German nationals.

Ukmergė 1899

Вилыкомıр / Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania) 

Бердичев / Berdichev, Киевская губерния / Kiev gubernia

Клинцы / Klintsy,  Черниговская губерния / Chernigov gubernia

ГордѢевка / Gordejevka, Черниговская губерния / Chernigov gubernia

This is a postal stationery sent in 1899 from Вилыкомıр / Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania) to ГордѢевка / Gordejevka, Черниговская губерния (Chernigov gubernia), now spelled Гордеевка / Gordeevka in modern Russian. What's interesting about this cover is not the front but rather the back of the cover with multiple of postmarks for a non-registered, non-express just regular domestic postal transaction. It is a bit confusing for the readers who are not really familiar with cyrillic alphabets so I'm gonna first list down the postmarks in chronological order:

1. front: Вилыкомıр / Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania) 3 February 1899
2. back: Бердичев / Berdichev, Киевская губерния / Kiev gubernia (now Бердичів / Berdychiv, Ukraine) 8 February 1899 - the postmark uses the abbreviation "Киевск. г." / Kievsk. g.
3. back: Клинцы / Klintsy, Черниговская губерния / Chernigov gubernia, (now it is part of Bryansk Oblast, Russian Federation) 9 February 1899 - the postmark uses the abbreviation "Черниг. г." / Chernig. g.
4. back: ГордѢевка / Gordejevka, Черниговская губерния / Chernikov gubernia (now Гордеевка / Gordeevka, Bryansk Oblast, Russian Federation) 10 February 1899 - the postmark uses the abbreviation "Черниг. г." / Chernig. g.

What I don't get in this, is: why sending via Kiev gubernia? It's probably easier to understand if I post a map so I've looked the driving route from Бердичів / Berdychiv, Ukraine to Гордеевка / Gordeevka, Russia on Google map with Vilnius on it as well. Here it is:

Car route from Berdychev to Gordeevka via Kiev and Klintsy on Google map

Looking on this map, you can see this totally wasted and useless 500km journey by sending first to Berdychiv, Ukraine. I do not have any concrete evidence but after couple days of research, I have come up with 2 possible reasons.
Normally, most of the mail going from Vilnius to Chernigov gubernia at that time, it would go via Minsk and Gomel which is pretty much a straight line and literally the shortest way, there was even a railway post for it. For some reason, it couldn't take this route and instead went through the railway post Vilnius - Rovno (now Rivne, Ukraine). Berdychiv is located in the middle of the railway line Rovno - Kiev, itself has a station and is an important railway junction. But it still doesn't explain why Berdychiv and not a Kiev or Rovno connection postmark.
Now the second possible reason. When I was looking at Berdychiv on an old Imperial Russian map I was very confused to find a town called Гордевка / Gordevka (now Гордіївка / Gordiivka, Ukraine) right next to Berdychiv. Doesn't it sound familiar? Gordeevka, Russia and Gordevka, Ukraine, I think that it could have been a simple mistake of destination by the post office.

Whatever the conclusion, I really had fun researching those locations and the postmarks. That what really counts anyway, isn't it?

Salakas 1898

Солоки/Soloki, Ковенская Губерния / Kovenskaya Guberniya (Kovna Gubernia)

Arrival cancel of Вилыкомıр / Vilkomir

Таврогины/Tavroginy Volost administration office

This is a stampless official administrative cover sent in 1898 from Солоки / Soloki (now Salakas, Lithuania) to Вилыкомıр / Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania). The sender is the Таврогины / Tavroginy (now Tauragėnai, Lithuania, not to be confused with Таурогенъ/Taurogen - Tauragė) Volost administration office which Salakas was part of. It has a nice seal on the back with a coat of arms of Kovna Gubernia. Volost is a Russian administration subdivision which roughly corresponds to a county.

Cancellations of Lit.SSR - 09 Soviet Occupation 1941

Here is a brighter close up of the Таураге/Tauragė postmark

Going through boxes of thousands of cheap stamps, you don't expect that much normally.  But here is  my lucky day and I would like to show you! Low quality damaged commemorative stamps of Soviet Union without much catalog value. What's so lucky about it? Well it's the postmark (as usual of course). The left stamp has a postmark of Таураге / Tauragė and right one, Укмерге / Ukmergė dated 1941, which means it's the first Soviet annexation before the German invasion in 1941. The postmarks of regional Lithuanian towns during this period are scarce comparing to Latvian SSR or Estonian SSR.

Recent Acquisitions

Lately I haven't been able to have enough time to neither acquire new covers nor time for posting threads... However, here are some stamps I have found recently in various sources.

Memel Local issue
Postmark Memel 25.03.1939

Not new to this blog but another copy of Fuhrer's 50th anniversary
 with an illustration of the Municipal theater in Memel

Central Lithuania (I personally prefer to translate it "Middle Lithuania")
Postmark Troki (now Trakai, Lithuania) 7.1922

Вилыкомıр/Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania) 15.IV.190?

Coat of Arms series - 3

 2003 issue is an unusual issue of 5 stamps with the coat of arms of 

Gargždai Kretinga Palanga Papilė and Rietavas

 2004 issue with Mažeikiai Radviliškis and Ukmergė

2005 issue is a dual issue with Druskininkai and Vabalninkas

Presidential Election 1993

 Panevėžys 1993

Ukmergė-4 1993 

Trakai 1993 

Today I'm posting some modern Lithuanian philately rarities. Those are anonymous registered mails used to send the ballots of the Prezidento rinkimai/Presidential election of 1993. This election was a historic event because it was the first presidential election after the restoration of independence in 1990.  Those covers were supposed to have been all destroyed after the election but somehow, some of them survived under an unknown circumstance. They are all anonymous, which is unlikely to happen to a regular registered mail, use specific no-franking postal stationery for the election and the back is sealed with postmarks. "rinkimai" stated in the upper left part means election. What is also interesting is that all 3 postmarks display dates differently. Panevėžys postmark displays day - month - year, in this case 9 02 93. Ukmergė-4 postmark shows full year - month - day 1993 2 9 and Trakai, last 2 digits of the year - month - day 9300 02 10. Who knows, maybe a century later, those covers could have some historical values...

Ukmergė 1909

Вилькомир / Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania)

This is a postal stationery sent in 1909 from Вилькомир / Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania).  It was formally called Vilkmergė which is also the name of the river near by.  According to the legend, Vilkmergė is a girl raised by the wolves. "Vilkas" meaning wolf in Lithuanian and "Merga" meaning maiden, which makes up Vilk-mergė.

Šatės 1907

This is a postal money order sent in 1907 from Шаты/Shaty (now Šatės, Lithuania), Ковен.Г.(Ковенская Губерния/Kovna Gubernia) to Вилыкомıр/Vilkomir (now Ukmergė, Lithuania) also in Kovna gubernia. Šatės is a village not far from Skuodas with a population of little over 400.

Nice arrival cancellation of Vilkomir/Ukmergė