Earliest Mails
The earliest mail service between St Petersburg and Constantinople consisted of diplomatic pouches carried from 1721 on. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 provided for a regular mail service, for which a consular post office was established in Constantinople. It began using handstamped postal markings around 1830. Beginning in 1779 a mail boat circulated between Constantinople and Kherson, and 1781 saw the establishment of an overland route through Bucharest to Bratzlav.
In 1856, the Russian Steam Navigation and Trading Company (Russkoe Obschchestvo Parokhodstva i Torgovli or РОПиТ, ROPiT) took over postal operations. It handled mail service between the various offices, and funneled mail to the rest of Russia through Odessa. The ROPiT offices received a status equivalent to regular Russian post offices in 1863.
Read more about this topic: Russian Post Offices In The Ottoman Empire
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