Saturday, December 29, 2018

Tikhaya Bay, Hooker Island

Hooker Island is part of Franz Josef Land: a Russian archipelago far above the Arctic Circle. A little further north than Svalbard. At one time the island was a base for polar exploration and meteorologic research. I don't think much goes on there now. Mainly research I guess. Tourism is growing though and every summer a post office at Tikhaya Bay opens for business. That's where this letter came from.



The cover I got back was not the cover I sent. My cover letter requested that the enclosed letter, stamped and addressed, be returned to me.  But instead they literally returned my cover letter under a new cover with different stamps, as shown above. Perhaps my original cover was damaged or stolen or lost of something. Who knows. Or they literally interpreted my request to mail back "the letter" to mean "mail back my cover letter". Pretty sure I used enough postage.

For reference, this is the address I used:

Post Office - Почтовое отделение
Tikhaya Bay - Hooker Island
Franz Josef Land
Arhangelsk obl.
163110
RUSSIAN FEDERATION

5 comments:

torrbrae said...

Great you got a reply - I tried sending to the Postmaster at Tikhaya Bay but was returned as "Unavailability of address of addressee". Out of interest, when did you receive the cover back? Also interested was postmarked on 30 November 2018, as understood the station at Tikhaya Bay is closed for the winter from late September.

Jeff said...

This was a strange cover. I think I mailed it in June of 2018 so I was not expecting it to come back in the same year. In fact, I was doubtful it would come back at all. But I received it in December of 2018. I agree that the November postmark is a bit odd as I would think that's a little late for that location. Maybe this wasn't really mailed back from the station. Or the postmark date was wrong.

torrbrae said...

Jeff Thanks for the reply. Yes, think some of the covers are not actually postmarked on location. I had the privilege of visiting Tikhaya Bay in September 2017, hence my interest in the Post Office. Will try next season to see if can send and have returned a letter from Tikhaya Bay itself. Judy

nayatir said...

hi, again jeff.!
could you please provide me with some details about this cover request?

- how many stamps should I apply (what value?), bcz I am unable to access the Russian Post website [fyki, I have four Russian mint stamps, they are valued 9.00,6.00,7.00,9.00]
- Did you translate the request into Russian?
- finally, should I send the request NOW?

thank you so much for helping me so much!!

Jeff said...

Depending on where you're located, trying to send a request to Tikhaya Bay this year might be difficult. Maybe even impossible.

I don't know the current postal rates but I suspect it's a little higher than what you have. I'm pretty sure www.pochta.ru is being blocked at the source. I couldn't access it either. Canadapost and USPS are not currently accepting mail for Russia or Belarus as they have no direct or reliable method of getting there.

I might have translated part of my original message into Russian. I can't recall. Maybe just the "mail it back to me" part.