Russian postage rates in the Soviet era

Did a quick check of my BJRP index before heading out. Looks like there's an article that discusses the international rates through 1971, but still not in the time frame of your interest. I'll check my other resources when I get back tonight.

The Oliver compilation is specific to Russia from the early days through 1967.

I'll upload it to my cloud server and post the link later. It's a small pdf. I don't remember it having comprehensive tables like the USPS charts, but it was like descriptions of the rate changes for each period. I do know it only goes up to 1967.

I'll also upload the SJRP journal that has the rate discussion through 1971 -- I recall it was intended to be an extension/update to the info from 1967 to 1971, maybe?

Anything after 1971 may need a little hunting through individual journals. There are some articles on the postal rates for the Russian Federation after the 1992 breakup, as well as a few articles on rates in some of the independent countries such as Ukraine... But I don't recall seeing anything in the index for the period you were interested in.

I had a break, so went ahead and uploaded the Oliver pdf. Everyone can download it from:

Russian Postage Rates by Allan Oliver

Didn't check to see if it was copyright, so nobody report me to admin.

Here is the 1971 article from SJRP: Soviet Inland & Overseas Postal Rates 1917-1971 by V Karlinsky

I glanced over it quickly. It does a good job of putting a lot of the Oliver text into tables. The last entry in the tables (representing new rate changes) is 1961, although the title indicates 1971 -- which seems to imply there was no rate change from 1961 to 1970? There doesn't seem to be any significant additional actual rate information in this article, but I didn't read both Oliver and Karlinsky all the way through.

You might want to consider contacting Rossica Society of Russian Philately. If there is a resource for that time period, I would think they would know.

Hey, I.M. DeBear!  It's interesting that you mention the evidence of steaming on your RM cover(s).  Of my RM material many covers have no adhesive on the envelope flap, and some envelopes have no adhesive at all, i.e., they are folded together like a standard envelope, but can be unfolded intio a flat sheet.  I'd say that out of a few dozen of these covers spanning almost ten years, only about half are sealed.  I guess it wouldn't surprise me if there was some inspection/surveillance that occurred, possibly on both sides...

I was able to spend some  time with the two documents today. The two are consistent, but Karlinksky is more helpful for the modern era and is a bit more comprehensive.  Oliver, for example, doesn't mention the different rates for mail depending on whether the destiation is a socialist or non-socialist country beginning in 1961.  Anyway,  using these references I can make sense of some of my covers franked at 16K or multiples for airmail, and 4K or  multiples for surface rate.  There are still many questions regarding other covers like one that is franked at 10K airmail, a few at 3K (interestingly this is the 1961 surface rate to socialist countries) and others at higher amounts that are not exact multiples of the standard 1961 rates.  My guess is that the rate  structure changed sometime in the 1970s.  I will continue my quest for inforemation and will reach out to Rosica as suggested.  Thanks again for the helpful references!

One with no gum on the envelope flap. Also note the writing under the flap.  I haven't been able to translate the Cyrillic script...

astroguy , The second pic has tears on the bottom flap. Evidence of tampering? Not sure what to make of that in light of the mysteriously missing gum.

Radio Moscow to USA cover (steamed) 15DEC1959