Artsakh Republic (Nagorno-Karabakh Or Mountainous Republic Of Karabakh)

I was researching some overprints of stamps of the USSR I hand been sitting on since the 90's. One was given to me with the description of from the Mountainous Republic of Karabakh. With some recent research I found that to not be the case, but I did track down and purchase the first issues. They are listed in Mi but not Scott. While the break away republic (from Azerbaijan) is not recognized (except by other break away republics), I did receive the stamps mailed to me in a letter with stamps of Artsakh. It was sent via Armenia (back stamp). Question to expand my knowledge: How do they make it through the international mail if they are not recognized? Is Armenia covering the international post?

I was looking for this area in 2014
For what I cannot recall.
I cannot find a stamp as yet, that would have inspired my curiosity.

I've bought a couple of things from that same ebay seller in Stepanakert. In fact, I have a cover very similar to yours: same stamps, but with a different section of the selvage inscription, postmarked 19 Nov 2018. Neither of the two envelopes that he sent me has any back stamp, though.

Here's one of the items that I bought from him:


Note the address: "Stepanakert, Artsakh, Armenia". But there's no other indication of routing through Armenia.

Here are the pages I created for the issues. Most of the history is from Wikipedia, so take that for what it is.

I have two registered covers with Nagorno-Karabakh stamps:

- 1 May 2001 from Stepanakert to New York (with four SG 6 and two SG 7)

These are the 1995 surcharged versions of two of the stamps shown in an earlier post:


- 3 August 2001 from Stepanakert to Moscow (with one each of SG 6, SG 7 and SG 10.


Both are clearly philatelic and are from the same sender but each has the relevant US or Russian arrival handstamp on the back.