1917 Russia Revolution Refugee Camp Cover

I'm just going by what the note that was enclosed with the cover says, but I thought it was an interesting cover. Any info anyone has would be appreciated.

The stamp is from the Russian 1996 series, Sc 76 or SG 91. The top of each cancel says Russian Post, dates look like 14 (and 15) FEB 1921(?). Beyond that, my Russian isn't good enough to read the rest of the cancel, and I'm hopeless with handwriting.

That era was bananas from a philatelic (and currency/banknote) view, with loyalist, provisional, military, and Communist governments using Imperial stamps with and without overprints, new issues, and even revenue stamps for postage.

It's addressed to some place in Constantinople and that's what the receiving postmark is. Can't really decipher better because I'm also terrible at reading other people's cursive haha

Nice cover!

Many years ago I got fascinated by the Russian Civil War period and I used to collect the stamps issued by the various armies and territories.

The write-up here gives the cover some basic context but I would disagree with some of the details.

These stamps are listed in the SG Russia catalogue under "Russian Refugees Post" in its Civil War Issues section and in Scott at the end of the Russia listing after the Russian Offices in the Turkish Empire.

After a number of defeats in his final campaign against the Bolshevik forces General Wrangel evacuated the remaining "Russian Army" soldiers and many civilians from Crimea resulting in refugees living in various camps in Turkey and around the Eastern Mediterranean.

These stamps have surcharges reading "Post of the Russian Army" along with values in South Russian rubles.

This stamp has a 10,000 ruble surcharge.

My main sources of information for these stamps and covers are some of Dr Ceresa's long series of handbooks with the title, "The Postage Stamps of Russia, 1917-1923, Volume 3. The Armies"

These handbooks are filled with useful information but sadly many of the hundreds of photographs are very hard to make out.

It seems that there is very little evidence for these stamps being used in practice although they seem to have been authorised by the remaining Wrangel army authorities.

The sources quoted by Dr Ceresa suggest that the covers were manufactured first in Constantinople and later in Paris.

The first postmark on this cover has the name of a camp, "Lager Lann (Zaiton Burnu)".

I believe this was a location in the current Zeytinburnu on the coast on the European side of Istanbul.