USSR Airmail 1946 Olonek Far North Artic Route - Rare

SOVIET AIRMAIL FAR NORTH ARTIC ROUTE: DUDINKA - TEKSI

Olenek, Yakutia region 1946 (1st June) - Domestic registered airmail envelope sent to the artic sea port of TIKSI (Lena river mouth), via the FAR NORTH DUDINKA - TIKSI route. 1,20 rubles franking, probably paying the correct inland registered second rate (60k airmail + 30k second step + 30 k registration, tariff of 6 February 1939). Arrival on the back (unclear strike). Very Fine.

Olenek was a very small isolated village on the Olenek river in the Yakut Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (ЯАССР, founded 1922), with around 500 inhabitants in 1946. The cover took the Dundinka - Norilsk - Khatanga - Nordvik - Tiksi Far North route, run by the company Avia-Arktika.

Very rare airmail route w/ an exceptional origin. From Olenek only two or three airmail covers are known.

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 Sashenkov

Michel 1010
Standard 934

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