When travelling around Turkey, you’ll spot yellow PTT boxes, cargo vans, offices and more all over. PTT, an abbreviation for Posta ve Telgraf Teşkilatı, is the national post and telegraph directorate of Turkey. Formerly, the organization was named Posta Telgraf Telefon. After the privatization of the telephone telecommunications service business, the directorate was renamed, keeping its acronym. It is headquartered in Ankara, Turkeys Capital, however it is known as TURKISH POST internationally.
On 23 October 1840, during the reign of Abdulmejid I, the Ottoman Ministry of Posts was established. In 1855, the first telegraph service and in 1909 the first telephone service were put into use. In the same year the name of the ministry was changed to Posta Telgraf Telefon, “Posts, Telegraph and Telephone” or PTT for short, a name which was used for 86 years. In 1995 the telephone and other telecommunication services were transferred to newly founded Turk Telecom (which was soon privatized). Accordingly, the directorate was renamed as “Organization of Post and Telegraph”. Thus the former acronym PTT is kept.
PTT celebrating its 180th anniversary this month, has a much profound background than it has now. In an interview with the Honorary President of the Turkish Philately Academy, Turhan Turgut talks about his work on Ottoman postal history, his sprawling stamp collection, and what postal and communications tradition endure nearly two centuries later after PTT’s founding.
How did people use to communicate with each other before the establishment of PTT Corp. the Turkish Postal Services on October 23, 1840? What tradition was PTT built on?
Before the establishment of the regular postal system before 1840s, written communication was mainly comprised up of official correspondence between the palace and organizations working with it and its states and sanjaks (Sanjaks were administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire). Specialcally assigned officers called Sais, Messengers, Satellites or Tatars were responsible for the delivery of the important and vital documents. They sed the main roads defined as the right, left, and the middle routes that started to form Istanbul and extended along Anatolia and Rumelia to reach their destination.
Stations were built at certain distances on these main roads and their secondary routes. These were the stations where messengers providing correspondence services, armies going for battles and the pilgrimage convoys to Hejaz (Holy region in the west of Saudi Arabia) use for accommodation. Forerunners assigned by the sultan to inform him about the arrival of the pilgrimage convoys in Hejaz and their return back home also benefitted from this transportation system. The civilians were looking forward to seeing these forerunners to hear from their relatives who went on pilgrimages.
It has been acknowledged that the regular postal system was established during the reign of Kanuni. When Grand Vizier Lütfi Pasha, who served the empire between 1539 and 1541, mentions the messengers in his work called Asafname “I had range horses placed in some places during my administration,” he says, which provides the source for his process in creating the system.
The villagers living close to these stations were assigned as stationers to provide accommodation and food for the residents, to look after their animals and retain their safety. They were also responsible for keeping range horses ready for the use of messengers. When the messenger carrying the document reached his destined station, he would either change his horse or pass the document to another messenger to be delivered to its destination. The general rule was the important and vital documents to be carried and delivered by one messenger. The tradition on which PTT was build and dates back to centuries ago.
Under which conditions was PTT (referred to as Posta Nezareti then) established? What is the atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire then?
The initial step from the previous postal system to regular postal system was taken during the reign of II Mahmud. In an imperial inscription, registered in the Prime Ministry Archive, it is requested that any place or individual that can provide postal services in :suitable areas in Anatolia and Rumelia” are put into use. The statment, in the aforementioned imperial inscription, of the letters and relics to be sent by “the people of Islam and either subject to a person or state” shows the postal system did not only include only official correspondence but also private communication.
The first regular postal system service the civilians was established during the Ottoman Empire on 23 October 1840 and referred to as “Postahane-i Amire” Bahcekapi, what is now the IS Bank museum. Although the Postal Service was established earlier, it actually came into use on this date.
There is a close relationship between these developments and the political reforms launched in the Ottoman state in 1839. It was not possible for the Ottoman Empire to stay away from the dynamism that the Industrial Revolution was introducing to Europe. The improving and expanding business connections with Europe lead to the opening of the first Bank (Bank-i Dersaadet) in 1847.
A few years after that the importance of postal services increased greatly with the opening of Osmanli Bank. Because all money and other valuable paper transactions were made through post at the time, a separate tariff of fares were set for them.
Professionals such as merchants, tailors and doctors also started use the postal system to promote their services. During the First World War, were used extensively as a means of communication and propaganda with the war front and made great progress.
During the Ottoman Empire, PTT was an organization that serviced on three continents. How did this corporation and organization function?
In regards to the Ottoman Empire, the empires boarders stretched from what is now Serbia toYemen. The state implements numerous measures to make sure that the postal system reaches all its destinations without any failure or delay. We know that there were 3139 post offices in service from 1840 to 1922. In the few years following September 1855, when Istanbul was connected to Europe by telegraph, an effective telegraph network was established within the Ottoman State.
In the annual dated 1847, it was stated that it took a letter from Istanbul (Constantinople) to reach its destination in Edirne 44 hours, 217 hours to Sarajevo, 203 hours to Adana, 464 hours to Baghdad, and one coin was charged per hours for a three-drachmae (10.6g). Later, the development of the marine transportation shortened the time of the haul between the costal post offices. For example, it took a mail from Trabzon to reach its destination by land 100 hours, but it took less than two days by sea. The mail within the city was delivered the same day.
With the railways coming to use, the landscape of postal system changed drastically and gained speed. The railway line connecting Istanbul directly to Vienna opened on August 12, 1888. The famous Oriental Express started to run between Paris and Istanbul June 1, 1889. Mobile postal services were provided on these trains and significantly sped up the time between communications. In addition, the train stations changed to post office status that can only accept letters. The mail sent to Europe by sea through Varna until 1886 stated to be sent by rail after that.
With the opening of the railway lines in Anatolia, the destiny of its mail transportation also changed. Postal services were provided at some parts of these railway lines. The transportation of mail through the sea and rail lines and the use of the telegraph becoming more prevalent made the profession of messengers obsolete. In 1918, they were all assigned as mobile civil servants, which caused a traditional service to come to an end.
Was the running of the postal services during the Ottoman Empire successful under the sultans power?
Of course. The postal system was always taking the lead among the most efficiently working institutions in Ottoman Empire. The State considered the privacy and the safety of the delivery service they provided as a debt of honour and took care to protect this with the rules they established by the European countries were adopted to the standards of the state and came unto use after a while.
Even as early as 1834, Paris Central Ambassador Mustafa Resit Pasha was asked to provide information about the French postal system, which he had obtained a copy of the French postal order and sent it over. All the data regarding the postal tariffs and which post offices were entitled to what type of delivery was presented to civilians in a simple language accompanied by maps since the first postal service came into use. As of 1864, all this information was documented in annuals, and after 1892, they were only documented in pamphlets that were only specifically prepared for this same purpose by the Post and Telegraph Supervision. Most of the pamphlets prepared after 1883 were published in Ottoman Turkish and French, and their content was prepared in a manner that they can still set an example for us today.
The Ottoman State took part in the international organizations that took place to prevent any potential confusion and to create a unitiy among interstate postal systems too. The Ottoman State, the founding member of the Universal Postal Union established on 9 October 1874, implemented all the regulations set in international conferences to a large extend.
PTT played a strategic role during the difficult days of the War of Independence. What contributions were provided to this road to victory?
During the National Struggle that started with Mustafa Kemal and his friends, embarking on Samsun on May 19th, 1999, the telegraph officers displayed great sacrifice and patriotism. When the telegraph that the Representative Committee created during the Sivas Congress held between 4-11 September 1919 sent to the Emperor on 11 September 1919 was obstructed by the Grand Vizier, it was decided that the telegraph services between Istanbul and Anatolia to be abolished. As of 21 September 1919, the State of Istanbul stooped accepting and money order and escrows to Anatolia.
After opening of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (GNAT) on April 23rd, 1920, the General Directorate of Post and Telegraph of the GNAT Government was established under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This directorate was a continuation of the Istanbul-based General Directorate in terms of its technical infrastructure and human resources and organized in the same manner. It started serving in a tent set up in the Parliament’s garden under the difficult conditions of those days.
During the War of Independence, communication with letters, transfer and carrying package services interruption continued. But the major responsibility was on the shoulders of the dispatch clerks. Because of the only device for the speed communication was telegraph in the absence of the network of the telephone, every movement of the army was watched and directed. In this period, Turkish dispatch clerks tried to nullify the efforts of the occupation forces to sabotage communication opportunities with super human effort and provided services.
It is known that Atatürk replied as the “wires of the telegraph” to the question “how have you managed to win the victory?” from a foreign journalist. Many fearless and patriotic telegraphers such as Fatsali Halim Efendi and Hamdi Bey played a great role to transmitting information from Istanbul under occupation. During most of the meetings, Mustafa Kemal Pasha made with the military commanders, he used telegraph device himself and almost of the burden of developing common strategies was undertook by the communication device.
Back when we were kids, many of us had pen pals, stamp collections and these were a way to connect with the world before the internet. During times of revolution, the tools of communication were essential to saving lives and delivering important messages to those on the forefront.
Today we have the internet in all its forms, from the use of Twitter to help share messages from war torn regions and oppressed people, to zoom meetings and emails that have kept us all connected during a global pandemic.
PTT History Timeline:
1840 Ministry of Post was established
1855 Directorate of Telegraph was established
1871 Ministry of Post and Directorate of Telegraph were united
1901 Money order (money transfer) service was started
1909 After the establishment of telephone service, organization was turned into the Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone
1939 It has been carrying out its services as subordinate to the Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications as the named of General Directorate of PTT
1984 General Directorate of PTT has been transferred into the status of the State Economic Establishment
1995 General Directorate of PTT was restructured as the General Directorate of Posts and Turk Telecom Corporation
1995 It was started automation service on money order and postal cheque services
1999 It is started to cooperation with Garanti Bankası (Körfezbank) within the transaction services
2000 The name of “General Directorate of Posts” was amended as “General Directorate of Post and Telegraph Organization (PTT)
2004 The name of PTTBank was registered
NOMAD SKETCHBOOK 
Very very nicely done! Thank YOU !
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