Currency stamps were issued as subsidiary coinage due to a shortage of small coins. Currency stamps were distributed through financial institutions. Currency stamps were authorized for postage.

The reverse side of the postage stamp: Double frame (outer - thick and inner - thin). Coat of arms of the Russian Empire. Text: Circulates on par with coin of same value.

ISSUED WITHOUT GUM

Records mention a system of messengers in the 10th century. Early letters were carried in the form of a roll, with a wax or lead seal.

By the 16th century, the postal system included 1,600 locations, and mail took three days to travel from Moscow to Novgorod

Peter the Great enacted reforms making the postal system more uniform in its operations, and in 1714 the first general post offices opened in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.

The earliest known Russian postmark dates from July 1765; it is a single line reading "ST.PETERSBURG" (in Latin letters), but the first official recommendation to use postmarks did not come until 1781.

Russian Post is a founding member of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) created in 1874.

By the late 1930s, 203 post offices operated in Leningrad. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945, communication between the front line and the rear was provided by the Field Post. In the first year of the Siege, there were 108 post offices working in Leningrad.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet postal service was a part of the People's Commissariat for Communications of the USSR. It delivered up to 70 million parcels per month to the Soviet Army front from the rear under extremely difficult and often very dangerous conditions.

NO WATERMARK

PRINTING: Typography /Paper thin cardboard.

COLOUR; Blue

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