The postal history of the Tuvan National Republic in the pre-stamp period, i.e. before the introduction into postal circulation of the first stamps of the TNR, turns out to be the least studied area, as we do not have either factual material in even minimally sufficient quantities or at least a small amount of trustworthy data in the archives. Only the late S.M. Blekhman was able to obtain some details in the archive at Kyzyl.

    This population naturally had relatives and subsequently also trade and economic ties with Siberia. There was still no mail service in the territory. Postal links were performed by the medium of messengers, or by occasional trips to the nearest post office at Minusinsk. One could also travel to Krasnoyarsk in the summer season, when it was possible to sail on the Enisei (Yenisei) River. Postal sendings of this period with stamps of pre-revolutionary Russia are very rarely found. In the first place, that can be explained by the insignificant volume of mail being sent, and secondly, because such sendings can be identified only with great difficulties, as the addresses normally did not write back. To recognise the outgoing mail, one must be guided by the messages in such letters. For example, there came into my hands what was at first glance a most ordinary greeting card.

The definitive stamp on it is cancelled by the transit postmark of Minusinsk. However, when I saw below the text the signature "A. Byakova", I stood to attention. Indeed, that surname is present among the names of settlers in the Uryankhai Territory! I asked friends to conduct enquiries in Minusinsk. By now, there were no persons to be found with such a surname, who had lived there regularly. There was only one deduction: a certain A. Byakova had sent a greeting card to Krasnoyarsk from her settlement in Uryankhai.

    Postal sendings to Uriankhai can be determined just by the address. For example, one would write to such and such a person in Minusinsk, let us say to the settlement of Satyanov or Zhukov. And the settlement would be situated in Uryankhai; a letter or card would be sent there along those lines. At that time, the postmarking of mail would have been carried out with the ordinary Russian cancellers of Minusinsk (figs 1 to 3) and, more rarely, for valuable and registered mail even with the cancellers of Krasnoyarsk (figs 4 to 6) in the summer time. To these markings can be added the quite rare postmark of Grigor'evka, a post office nearer to Uryankhai and which was opened in 1914 with the serial number "a" (fig. 7).

    Now to the second period of time, and especially about the rare postmark of Belotsarsk. In July 1936, there was prepared in the Organising Office of the All-Russian Society of Collectors and sent from Moscow to the peripheral branches of the Society a typewritten manual entitled Materials about the questions of collecting: Manual No. 8. In it, V.K. Golovkin published the beginning of his work Catalog of the postage stamps of the Tuvan Arat (= Herdsmen) Republic. Writing about the forerunners of the stamps of Tuva, he referred for the first time specifically in this work about the postmarks of Belotsarsk in the following way: "1913. Stamps of Russia cancelled with a single-line marking, reading: , as well as a similar circular postmark. From 1913 to 1917."

    Judging from the inaccuracies in the examination of other questions, as well as the presence of the mistake "1913", which was repeated twice in this same sentence (since in that year, there was no post office, nor did Belotsarsk itself yet exist), he frankly did not have credible material, but had utilised unverified information, which had been presented to him. S.M. Blekhman attempted on the basis of these scanty data, which he had accepted as trustworthy, to reconstitute in full the design of the fragment he had obtained of the circular postmark of Belotsarsk. The results of this work were published by him in the monograph The Postal History and Postage Stamps of Tuva in 1976. However, investigative collectors searched in vain for strikes in accordance with his drawing. That very design, as well as the comment in the sentence by Golovkin quoted above, were erroneous. It is necessary to correct these mistakes, and I will try to do so.

    Did the single-line marking of Belotsarsk specified by Golovkin actually exist or, more exactly, the single-line cachet, in which there was no date? Apparently it did. A similar type of marking was also prepared earlier for Russian post offices abroad in Asia and particularly in the territory of Mongolia. As is known from the publications of Meiso Mizuhara and S.M. Blekhman, there were already by the end of the nineteenth century single-line markings, such as , and others. Their basic designation was for information and addresses.
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