USSR Airmail 1940 Far North Artic Route Verkhoyansk - Yakutsk

SOVIET AIRMAIL FAR NORTH ARTIC ROUTE: VERKHOYANSK - YAKUTSK - IRKUTSK

Verkhoyansk, Yakutia region 1940 (29 May) - Domestic airmail envelope sent to Moscow, via the FAR NORTH VERKHOYANSK - IRKUTSK route. 70k franking, overpaying by 10k the correct rate (60k airmail, tariff of 16 February 1938). Bilingual departure "VERKHOYANSK YAK. ASSR - BEROE JEENISKEJ". Arrival on the back Moscow 10 June 1940. Very Fine.

Verkhoyansk is a small locality on the Yana river in the Yakut Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (ЯАССР, founded 1922), with around 1500 inhabitants in 1940. The cover took the Verkhoyansk - Yakutsk- Olekminsk - Vitim - Kirensk - Irkutsk Far North route, run by the company Avia-Arktika. The air line segment between Verkhoyansk and Yakutsk (675 km) was opened in the early to mid-1930s.

See Mr Ackerman excellent reference book "Via The Red Skies" (pages 283-284): "Postal documents to/from Russia’s Northern Territory until after WW II are extremely scarce due to the sparse regional population, low literacy of most inhabitants, difficulties in communication in the frozen North, and the fact that until modern times people rarely saved letters/covers."

Provenance: ex collection Sashenkov

Michel 595, 694A

Standard 497, 580

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