On June 14   a ceremony of special cancellation of postage stamps and envelopes issued for the jubilee event of communication people of entire Russia - the 125th anniversary of telephone communication -   took place in St. Petersburg.

Yury Mikhailovich Agafonov, the Head of the Department of Federal Mail Service of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Vladimir Alexandrovich Akulich, the General Manager of OJSC North-West Telecom, and Leonid Zigmundovich Tufrin, the Regional Director -   Director of the St. Petersburg Branch of   OJSC N.W.Telecom , took part in the ceremony that was held in the operations hall of the St. Petersburg Post Office.

General Manager of OJSC NWT Vladimir Akulich noted in his address that "it was very pleasant and honourable for North-West Telecom to take part in the ceremony of cancellation of this commemorative stamp. Historically, our company has been the successor of the first communication people of St. Petersburg - Russia's pioneers in the field of telecommunications. Today we are continuing the glorious and useful cause started by them. And though telephone communication today and telephone communication 125 years ago are absolutely different things both from the standpoint of the scale and from the standpoint of technologies, its main purpose - to connect people, ensuring freedom of contacts and of getting necessary information - has remained the same. We would like to say thank you to the Mail of Russia - the   oldest enterprise in the Communication industry . Thanks to your stamp, our commemorative date has become a real part of history, in the direct sense of the word having left an imprint in history".

As Head of the Branch of FGUP Mail of Russia Yury Agafonov noted,   "historically, the postal and telephone communication have cooperated efficiently, creating a variety of communication methods. The postal and telephone communication have considerably both expanded the methods of peoples' contacts and in fact moved apart the boundaries of life and its world, having opened boundless opportunities of communication to the human being and the society."

A postage stamp with an image of the telephone set of late 19th - early 20th century (with the circulation of 200000 copies and the face value of 5 roubles) and a feature postage envelope (with the circulation of 10000 copies), as well as a postmark of "the first day", have been issued by the 125th anniversary of telephone communication in Russia. Stamps and envelope s with the imprint of special cancellation by the unique postmark of "the first day" will soon be added to the World Postage Catalogue and will be come a valuable part of philatelists' collections and a memorable present to all those who honour the history of their state and appreciate its traditions.

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Intensive development of telephone communication started in Russia after the Decree of Emperor Alexander III was issued on September 25, 1881, which allowed to arrange telephone communication for public use in the cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, Riga and Odessa.

The first telephone exchange in St. Petersburg started operating in July 1882 at 26, Nevsky Prospekt. 128 subscribers were provided with communication.   As of January 1, 1886, the used capacity of the St. Petersburg city telephone network was 940 telephone sets. On May 1, 1905 a new telephone exchange - this time for 12,000 subscribers - was opened at 22, B. Morskaya Street. By January 1, 1914 St. Petersburg had 49,860 operating telephone sets. Thus the development of telephone communication started in the Northern Capital .

Today there are about 2 million subscribers of telephone communication in St. Petersburg, and the St. Petersburg branch of OJSC North-West Telecom deals with their servicing.    Residents and enterprise s of the Northern Capital have access both to the traditional telephony services and to the up-to-date data transmission services, including the services of broadband access to the Internet and other capabilities of the multiservice communication network.