Šilutė 1942

Postmark of Heydekrug March 1942

Sender's address: Kolleschen bei Jonaten Kreis Heydekrug (Ostpr.)

It has been long since I have posted something here the last time I guess.. I'm planning to slowly come back on track!

Anyway.. So, here is a registered cover sent in 1942 from Heydekrug (today Šilutė, Lithuania) to Kassel in mainland Germany. 1942 is in the middle of WWII as we all know and Heydekrug / Šilutė  has been re-annexed by Germany along with the rest of Memelland. I guess the followers of this blog know that but let me mention it just in case if you happened to be new to this blog..

The sender's address is in Kolleschen (previously called Kolletzischken) b. Jonaten, a small village not far from the narrow-gauge line Heydekrug - Jonathen (or Jonaten). I wonder if the sender was working or just happened to be in Heydekrug to send this letter because there were closer post offices from where he was living, notably Jonathen.
I bought this cover at Yahoo Japan with a ridiculous price of 500 JPY (4.50USD or 4.30EUR) along with a Tilsit and a Skaisgirren cover (which I'm not going to post here because those are not part of Lithuania but part of present Russia) buried among hundreds of German covers. Regular dealers don't usually notice Memelland covers unless Memel stamps are used on it.

Vilnius 1940

This is a registered cover sent in 1940 from Vilnius 4 during the Soviet occupation period to the Swiss capital Bern. It has a nice arrival cancel of Bern on the back. It even has a letter inside still but unfortunately my Polish sucks therefore I'm unable to tell you guys what is it written about... Given the fact that the Soviet took Vilnius by force from the Poles, I can imagine that the Polish author of this letter (it's obvious from his Polish name and the Polish text) didn't just write a "what's up dude"-kinda letter but rather a serious one. The interesting part is that he wrote his address as "Vilnius, Latvia", which makes it look like he probably isn't from Vilnius/Wilno originally. It is indeed pretty confusing for those who is not familiar with Lithuania's name in other languages, Most worldwide stamp collectors probably know that Lietuva is the Lithuanian name for Lithuania as you can see on their postage stamps but it sounds and looks closer to Latvia than Lithuania. I actually don't know why is it called Lithuania in English...

Šaukėnai 1931

This is a registered mail sent in 1931 from Šaukėnai to the district court in Šiauliai (Šiaulių apygardos teismas). It looks like there were some kind of legal documents. Šaukėnai is a small town in Šiauliai County with a population of little over 700. Nice arrival cancel of Šiauliai on the back!

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.

Vilnius 1985 - J.S. Bach

It took me a 4 years to find a copy of this souvenir sheet cancelled in Lithuania buried among millions of Moscow CTOs

Today I saw an article on a newspaper talking about an iconic portrait of the German composer J.S. Bach being returned home to Leipzig, Germany. Conveniently, I actually do have a Bach related cover so I thought I would post here on this blog. This is a registered cover sent in 1985 from Вильнюс / Vilnius, Lithuania SSR to Warstein, West Germany. The souvenir sheet of J.S. Bach has been issued on the occasion of the 300 years anniversary of the artist's birthday. The curious thing is that the sender's last name Finkelšteinas, the Lithuanian -as ending form of the German noun Finkelstein, sounds rather more German than the recipient of the letter. I'm wondering if this person is somehow related to Ozeris Finkelšteinas, a Lithuanian Jewish politician during the prewar republic.

Vilnius 1960

Registration label and the postmark of Вильнюс/Vilnius 24

Arrival cancel of София ц. / Sofia c. (central), Bulgaria on the back of the cover

This is a registered postal stationery cover sent on the new year's eve 1960 from the post office Вильнюс / Vilnius 24 to София / Sofia, Bulgaria. One of the thing I don't really want to get into it, is the branch post offices of Vilnius because I know it would consume a lot of time and funds. I just happen to find this cover for a Euro and I couldn't pretend I didn't see anything. For the moment, I think I would like to stick with the branch post offices of Šiauliai and maybe in the future I will think about collecting Vilnius.

Šiauliai 1990

Registration label Šiauliai - 8

The inscription USSR (CCCP) and Lit. SSR is omitted, only Шяуляй (Šiauliai) is left

Почта (Post) with the inscription USSR (CCCP) omitted 

I'm sure you have already heard of provisional stamps or postmarks but, what about a provisional meter franking? This is a registered cover sent on 9 May 1990 from the post office Šiauliai 8 to Vilnius, with a rare provisional meter stamp. Everything that relates to USSR (CCCP) is omitted and on the top of the advertisement space, "Lietuvos Respublika" is added. Lithuania declared the restoration of independence on March 1990 but it wasn't until 1991 that the USSR and the international community recognize it. So when this cover was used, Lithuania was in kind of a state of limbo, no one knew for sure if it was in fact an independent state or not. Some post office kept using Soviet name (especially in the Polish speaking region near the border of Belarus) but some like Šiauliai 8, chose to act as the Lithuanian Post even if they were dependent on Soviet postage stamp and currency. The first post-Soviet Lithuanian stamps were issued only on October 1990.

Salakas 1969

Salakas postmark still in old type in 1969 while Zarasai already had the new one

Nice arrival cancel of Zarasai

This is a registered cover sent in 1969 from Салакас / Salakas to Зарасай / Zarasai within Lithuania SSR. For some reason, the registration label has a light blue color which is pretty unusual. Salakas is small town in Utena county with a population of approximately 500. It has a beautiful and majestic neo-gotico-romanesque church totally worth visiting just for this.

Vilnius 1940

This is a registered cover sent in November 1940 from Vilnius to Zürich, Switzerland. From what it looks like, it seems like a regular First Republic cover but Vilnius was under Soviet occupation from June 1940 to June 1941 so it is a cover under occupation. Lithuanian stamps were still postally valid as well as the newly introduced Soviet stamps. Nice arrival cancel of the post office Zürich 1 on the back!

Vilnius 1916

Arrival cancel of Bühl in the back of the cover

This is a registered cover sent in 1916 from Wilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania) to Bühl, Baden, Germany during the WWI German occupation. The franked stamps are the Germania stamps with an overprint "Postgebiet Ob. Ost" which I have posted several time already in this blog. They were used not only in Lithuania but part of Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and Podlakie which is a region in the north east corner of Poland. It looks like the sender is the German post office in Vilnius itself, you can see the hand stamped inscription "Deutsches Postamt Wilna" on the back along with the arrival cancellation of Bühl.

Švenčionys 1938

Arrival cancel of Wilno on the back

This is a registered cover sent in 1938 from Święciany (now Švenčionys, Lithuania) to Wilno (now Vilnius) during the Polish occupation period. It has been addressed to urzędu wojewódzkiego (Voivodeship admistration office) which in this case, it is the Wilno voivodeship (Województwo Wileńskie in Polish). Wydział Społeczno Polityczny is the department of social policy. The sender's address is not in Święciany but in Ustroń, a village in Żukojnie municipality which is part of Powiat Święciański (Švenčionys county) but this part the former county is now in Belarus.

Vilnius 1939

I've been pretty busy lately and was unable to update this blog but I'm back!
Today I'm gonna post a registered mail used in 1939 during the last stage of the Polish occupation within Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania).  It has been sent from the post office Wilno 6 to Wilno 1. It has a nice arrival cancellation of Wilno 1 on the back. The sender's address is actually not in Wilno but in Widze (now Відзы/Vidzy, Belarus) which was also part of Wilno region at that time.

Klaipėda 1957

This is a registered cover sent in 1957 during the Soviet rule from Клайпеда/Klaipėda to Ilford, Essex county, UK. There are few reasons why I have bought this cover, first, because of the price of 1.80 Euro and second was the Soviet commemorative stamp of the 1956 Antarctica expedition which is on my list of wanted Soviet stamps (I love the design!). Soviet stamps of the 1940's and 50's with Lithuanian cancels are pretty difficult to collect, most of the time you end up with either Moscow, Kiev, Odessa or Riga CTOs. The left end stamp is also nice, it is one of the sports series issued on 1948.

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.

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.

Rokiškis 1943

This is a registered mail sent in 1943 from Rokischken (now Rokiškis, Lithuania) to Wien also under German occupation. Michel calls Rokiškis, "Rakischki" but the correct official German name during WWII was Rokischken. I wouldn't say it is "wrong" because there are several sources that mention about the name Rakischki especially during the WWI period, probably coming from the Polish name Rakiszki. It has a nice arrival cancellation of Wien on the back.

Vilnius 1920

Unfortunately one stamp is missing but this is a registered postal stationery with added stamps sent on 21 June 1920 from Wilno (now Vilnius, Lithuania) to France. Prior to the formation of Central Lithuania, the Poles occupied Vilnius from 19 April 1919 to 13 July 1920, this card has been used during this period.
It is addressed to a certain Madame A. Hock in Gueugnon in the department of Saône-et-Loire in France but later redirected to Uriage (Uriage-les-Bains) in the department of Isère, which is known to be a spa town. The sender's name Helene Kwasser also doesn't seem Russian (rather German sounding) but their correspondence is clearly in Russian. Hôtel du Gare does not seem to exist in present Uriage anymore.