Russia, CCCP, USSR or SSSR?

Already from the first stamp issues in 1923 of what we for convenience call Russia, the Soviet Union, we regularly find the letters CCCP on the issues. In 1926 this was sometimes USSR, and sometimes both abbreviations were put on stamps.

And, why is Russia called Russia? Well, in the early Middle Ages North-Swedish salesmen travelled through the eastern part of Europe to the Black Sea, and caused some descendants here and there. The Swedish were mostly blond and the southern women had dark hair. We known by genetics that this delivers red haired descendants. The Greek, who travelled northward around 1600, called these descendants Rossya's, what was pronounced by us western people as Russians.
When the Czars united with each other in the mid 17th century and chose Michael Romanov, Czar of the oblast Grad Moskva (= city on the Moskva river), as leader, this union was generally called country of the Red (Russia).

Back to the stamps. On almost all Russian stamps up to 1992 we find the text: почта (= POST in the Cyrillic alphabet) and CCCP.

The last letters stand for Союз Советских Социалистически Республик, in our Latin writing Sojoez Sovjetskich Sotsialistitsjeskich Respoeblik, abbreviated SSSR, the communist state rom 1922 to 1991 that by us for convenvience was called Soviet Union (litteraly "Union of councils"), and in full Union of Socialistic Soviet Republics (USSR).

After 1991 the Russian Federation was formed, existing of 46 oblasts (provinces), 21 republics (respoebliki), 9 krajs (provinces), 4 autonomous districts (okroegs) and 3 federal cities (Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Sebastopol). Since then the country name on the stamps is Rossija (in Cyrillic Росси́я).

A large number of regions split themselves off and issued their own stamps.
One of them is Belarus, or White Rusland as it is better known. Belarus did not yet issue stamps with motorcycles, but did issue some postal stationery.

Hans de Kloet

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