districts with 42 correspondence offices located in trade stores. In 1834, reception offices appeared in the suburbs (in St. Petersburg there were as many as 108). Delivery of printed periodicals was organized in St. Petersburg in 1838. The Department of Coaches and T-carts was opened in 1840 at the Moika Embankment; light cabriolets carried surplus-post, coaches delivered light post, and T-carts dealt with “heavy" post. Green street mail boxes were installed in 1848, the same year stamped envelopes were issued; orange mailboxes for same day service appeared near railway stations in 1851, with the first prepaid postage stamps appearing in 1857. The Imperial Russian Historical Society estimated that in 1854 the Russian postal system was formed by a network of 16,510 mail couriers and of 3,950 relay stations, positioned every around 85,000 versts (roughly 90,500 kilometres). This structure was capable of delivering packages and letters twice a week in most of the Russian cities, 6 days in 63 cities and two times a year in the Kamchatka. Local postal systems used stamps referred to as Zemstvo stamps, from the term for local government begun under Alexander II in 1864. Russian Post is a founding member of the Universal Postal Union created in 1874. In 1902 Chief Postal Service was made part of the Internal Affairs Ministry and in 1917 under the Provisional Government it became part of Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. Soviet Union During World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, Soviet postal service was a part of the People's Commissariat for Communications of the USSR. It delivered up to 70 million parcels per month to the Soviet Army front from the rear under extremely difficult and often very dangerous conditions. In the postwar years, mail service has undergone quantitative and qualitative changes. In 1946, the People's Commissariat for Communications was transformed into the USSR Ministry of Communications. Postal service has been carried out by the Post Office, which was part of the Ministry of Communications, along with other offices of telecommunications industries. By 1950, the postal industry, destroyed by the war, was restored to the pre-war level. Russian Federation In 1993 Russian Post became a part of Ministry of Communications. In 1995, the office was reorganized as the Russian Federation Postal Service, and in 1996 it was reorganized into the Department of Post in the Ministry of Communications of the Russian Federation. Russian postal