The Far Eastern Republic, sometimes called the Chita Republic, existed from April 1920 to November 1922 in the easternmost part of Siberia. It was formed from the Amur, Transbaikal, Kamchatka, Sakhalin, and Primorye regions. In theory, it extended from Lake Baikal to Vladivostok but, in May 1921, the Priamur and Maritime Provinces seceded. Although nominally independent, it was largely controlled by the RSFSR and its main purpose was to be a democratic buffer state between the RSFSR and the territories occupied by Japan during the Russian Civil War to avoid war with Japan. Initially, its capital was Verkhneudinsk (now Ulan-Ude), but from October 1920 it was Chita. On 15 November 1922, after the war ended and the Japanese withdrew from Vladivostok, the Far Eastern Republic was annexed by Soviet Russia. Postage stamps Coalition Government In 1920 the RSFSR, by agreement with the communists, social revolutionists and social democrats, formed a three-party coalition government called the "Far Eastern Republic" (F.E.R.). The first Chairman of the F.E.R. was Alexander Krasnochekoff. In September 1920 this government ordered its Central Postal Administration to collect all stocks of the remaining tsarist postage stamps from all post offices in the area of the F.E.R. Large supplies of the Imperial Russian 1909-1917 'Arms' issue were on hand at the main post office of Khabarovsk and also at Vladivostok. At first mail was franked with these 'Arms' stamps and the still-current Kolchak (Siberia) overprinted stamps. This introduced the danger of revenue loss due to imported 'Arms' stamps. The decision was hence made to overprint all the 'Arms' stamps with the Russian initials 'DBP' meaning "Far Eastern Republic" (), and to accept only overprinted stamps for franking within the F.E.R. The exact issue date remains uncertain; sources mention November 23 as well as December 12, 1920. After the 'DBP' or DVR overprinted stamps were exhausted, four different new stamps modelled on the Tsarist 'Arms' type of 1909-1917 were printed in 1921 in Vladivostok. The exact issue date is unknown; estimates of production numbers range from 600,000 to 1,000,000. Priamur Provisional Government, Merkulov In May 1921 a White movement coup d'état took place in Vladivostok. The new authorities there declared the abolition of the F.E.R. government and formed the Priamur Provisional Government (; VPP). headed by the brothers and . On May 22, 1922 an overprint was applied by the Vladivostok State Bank to four of the 1921 definitive issues