Canadian Philatelist Philatéliste canadien - The Royal Philatelic ...

at St. Petersburg. This item of mail was carried on
the Chinese Eastern Railway (the Chinese section
of the Trans-Siberian Railway crossing Manchuria)
from Vladivostok to Manchouli, and when the train
crossed the Chinese/Russian border it became the
Trans-Siberian Railway, and pushed onward to St.
Petersburg.
Figure 2 shows a postcard posted during August
1905 (day is difficult to read) from a soldier in the
8th Sapper Battalion of the 2nd Sapper Company.
It was addressed to Marienburg, Valk region,
Liflyand Province (today in Latvia) and arrived
on September 1, 1905. There is a Field Post Office
mark that reads ‘4 Zapasnoe Polev. Kont’, which is
a reserve Field Post Kontora (larger type of office).
On the picture side is a photograph of the Railway
Bridge over the Sungari River in Harbin.
Figure 3 is a postcard posted at the Travelling
Post Office on the journey between Manchouli
and Harbin on the Chinese Eastern Railway. The
date of posting was August 31, 1905; the postal
clerk had not changed the year from 1904 to 1905,
and this error has been noted on other examples.
Because it was addressed to St. Petersburg it had
to travel all the way to Harbin and then wait to
catch the train back to St. Petersburg. After all this
travelling it reached St. Petersburg just 16 days
later on September 15, 1905. The person sending
it was heading to join the 4th Battery of the 23rd
Artillery Brigade. The reverse route from Harbin
to Manchouli was designated as RPO 262, and
so helps the postal historian in knowing which
way the item of mail was travelling. The picture
side of the postcard shows Verhneudinsk railway
station (Figure 3a) with the caption ‘156 versts
from Misovaya’, just over 103 miles to the east
of Misovaya (1 verst = 0.66266 miles). Misovaya
was the ferry port on the eastern side of Lake
Baikal. This card was most probably purchased
on board the ferry, written and posted on the way
to Harbin.
Figure 4 is a postcard sent from the Railway Post
Office at Harbin railway station on October 10,
1905 and arrived at St Petersburg on November
5, 1905. Even though this postcard is dated
after the end of the war, the troops were heading
home after being defeated by the Japanese.
The addressee was Alexander Alexandrovich
Galyashkin at the Volzhko-Kamskii Bank, St.
Petersburg.
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