A rare photo of employees of the Zemstvo post office

Extremely rare large-the servants Zemstvo post office in good condition. Size 308*414 mm. Zemstvo postal service began operating from the beginning of the 1870s, and By the time the state of the post office there was not in all rural areas of the Russian Empire. In 1870 there was a special Senate decree, under which the district Zemstvo began to organize its own network of postal establishments. By 1900, of the 359 counties of the Empire Zemstvo mail existed in 243 counties. The greatest development of Zemstvo postal agencies received in a vast but sparsely populated Eastern provinces (Perm, Samara, Vyatka, Kazan and Ufa), and also in some provinces of the South of Russia (in particular, Kharkiv, Poltava, Kursk, Tambov, and Ekaterinoslav). According to the rules of Zemstvo mail was considered a "continuation of government", and existed only in those provinces where there was no public post office. In the early twentieth century the government has done a lot of work on the replacement of the Zemstvo postal establishments mail state, so that by 1914, the Zemstvo mail preserved, according to various estimates, only 30 – 50 counties. The last Zemstvo post office ceased operations in 1918

In Russia in the late XIX – early XX centuries the uniform lower postal employees consisted of a dark green (almost black) double breasted jacket with white metal buttons and black lapels, finished with light blue edging, and a black cap with light blue edgings. The hallmark of postmen has been a fixture on the cap: the crown – the emblem of the postal and Telegraph Department, and on the band – metal ribbon with braids where you fought a room of this postman. Employees in the photo dressed just in this form, but instead of the post-Telegraph emblem on the crown cap, they have fixed other fittings (presumably the County coat of arms, as in its outlines to discern the shape of a heraldic shield). Not all of the depicted is equipped with a full set of uniforms – a significant part of them in order to save just shaped caps. Moreover, reinforcement of the post and Telegraph Department, as well as any insignia of ranks missing the two "princes of the individuals" sitting at the sides in the front row. From "inferior Ministers", they differ in that they wear collars and ties and edgings on the collar and cuffs of his jacket and round national cockade on the crown. The presence of the latter in the absence of a departmental logo means that the character of the education received is entitled to the assignment of class rank or have passed an appropriate exam, but at the moment the public service is not. All of the above indications allow us to assume that the photo shows the officers of the state, namely the Zemstvo postal service.

An additional argument in favor of this version are the gentleman in civilian clothes and the lady sitting in the centre – no doubt the guests of honor, in honor of the visit which made the. Rather, it is the Trustees or donors helping local Zemstvo; in case if the post office would state in their place would be high-ranking officials of post and Telegraph Department. Today it is the only known photographic image of Zemstvo employees of the post office. Recommended!