Estonian Postal Service

This is a survey of the postage stamps and postal history of Estonia. The stamps of Estonia are issued by the postal administration Eesti Post (Estonian: Eesti Post) which is the country's only provider of universal postal services.

In 1625, mainland Estonia came entirely under Swedish Empire rule. Estonia was administratively divided between the provinces of Estonia (in the north) and Livonia (in southern Estonia and northern Latvia), a division which persisted until the early 20th century.

Due to the wars in Denmark, Germany and in the Baltic provinces the postal communications were of vital importance to the Swedish Government and especially to the military authorities. There was not yet a general postal organization at that time. As the postal route via Denmark periodically was interrupted, the mail from Sweden to Germany was often directed either via Finland and Tallinn or via seaway to Riga. This background explains the appointment in 1625 of Jakob Becker of Riga as Postmaster for Livonia and Prussia. In 1631 Becker was made responsible for the printing shop of the University of Tartu. The public notice "Postordnung" of 26 September 1632 printed in Tartu by Becker can be considered to be the opening date for general mail in Estonia.

After the end of the Great Northern War Estonia was incorporated in the Russian Empire through the Peace of Uusikaupunkti (Nystad) in 1721. This period of Estonian history began already with the surrender of Tallinn in 1710. The needs for a properly functioning postal service had become so important that already in the negotiations about the capitulation one of the conditions of the cities was that post offices should be re-opened and that postal communications with neutral countries should remain open. These conditions were accepted by the Russian authorities. At the beginning the postal communications were rather sporadic and mainly met the military needs. In 1704 Narva was included in the postal route Saint Petersburg - Narva - Pskov - Velikiye Luki - Poland.

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