Landmarks

Little Blue Birdie's Diary

A day at the Post Museum

Dear Diary,

After our fascinating journey to the Vasa Museum, we spent two days flying around the town. During those flights we understood that Stockholm is a city of museums. We wanted to visit all these places, but decided to start from the Post Museum.

When I first saw the museum's name board, I was a bit astonished. Robin knew the place, so he was very enthusiastic on visiting it. I was feeling a bit bored and thought, "what can be there other than some old stamps", but I was a bit curious too.

The museum is situated in Gamla Stan, near the old town in Stockholm and the underground station. It is housed in the oldest building in the Swedish postal organisation, which dates back to the 17th century. It occupies an entire block of this building. According to Robin, the Post Office had purchased this building in 1720, and until 1869, it had housed Stockholm's only post office. The museum had been inaugurated in 1906.

The main exhibition at the museum is 'The letter - a journey through time'. It illustrates how letters had been delivered over the course of more than 360 years.

As I had first thought, there is a stamp and postcard collection as well. Named 'Remarkable!', the collection contains everything from unique varieties to stamps which feature the royal family and space travel.

It also had a section providing a pictorial guide about the history of stamps and the processes of production, through engraving, to the finished product. The world's oldest stamp collection that has survived in its original form is also housed here.

It also gives facts about stamp collectors and about how the postcard became popular. The entire second floor of the museum is converted into what is called 'Post F@ktum'. It's a knowledge centre with multimedia and internet functions.

I learned a lot about postal history and stamps, with the aid of the library, computers and stamp collections from Sweden and the other Nordic countries. There are around 25,000 photographs, prints, drawings and paintings in this section. "The library in the museum is one of the biggest of its kind in the world, and Sweden's only public library specialising in philately (stamp collecting) and postal history", said Robin. This had started in 1944 through the acquisition of Nils Strandell's philatelic library of 15,000 volumes.

"The library is constantly growing through acquisitions and donations of literature on philately and postal history from all parts of the world," said the librarian. The library consists of more than 51,000 volumes including general handbooks, monographs (work on one subject) and catalogues.

Here's the best part of the story, I got a chance to work as a postman! Can you believe it? Try to imagine a bird delivering mail! There is a smaller post office, where children can stamp letters, drive a postal van or sort and deliver the mail.

This place is called 'The Little Post Office'. It is situated in the basement. It was my favourite place at the museum, and I think it was the same with most of the children. The activities are guided by the teaching staff of the museum. Here, school and pre-school children discover what it was like to work in a post office in the 1920s.

They can practise the work of a postman, parcel driver, cashier and sorting office staff and most of the little ones were working quite seriously. I even got a chance to draw my own postcards and stamps! In the main hall, the first mail-carrying bus 'Ettan' (number one), which had run between Lycksele and Trerolund in the early 1920s, is displayed. Information is also provided on the railway post, rural and urban postmen, airmail and army postal services during the war years.

The time I spent in the museum was amazing. I felt the time had flown and regretted my initial reservations about visiting the place. I also enjoyed writing about it in this journal. See you again, with details of another interesting journey. Till then bye!