Turkey's post office to celebrate its 174th anniversary

ANKARA 

The first post office in Turkey, which was opened on Oct. 23, 1840, will celebrate its 174th anniversary on Thursday.

"The Post, Telegraph and Telephone has moved with the times, ever expanding and innovating to meet public demand. Our aim is to offer quality service to all our citizens everywhere, all of the time, right to the most distant borders of Turkey,” says Osman Tural, chairman of the Post Office Board.

Today, the PTT provides many services from parcel delivery to banking and pension payment. The agency earned a profit of 160 million Turkish lira ($71.3 million) in the first 8 months of this year, and has continued to increase its volume of operations and profit in 2014, investing in system modernization and the opening of new branches. 

The first postal organization was established as the Department of the Post on  Oct. 23, 1840, for the purpose of satisfying the messaging needs of the whole community of the Ottoman Empire.

The first Post Office was opened under the name of “Postahane-i Amire” (Department of Post-Office) at the courtyard of Yeni Camii (Mosque) in İstanbul, and the first officials, Suleyman Aga, and collector Sofyali Agyazar, were appointed as translators in order to translate the addresses of postal items written in languages other than Turkish.

11 years later, following the invention of telegraph in 1843, telegraph service was started also in the country and a separate Directorate of the Telegraph was established in 1855 in order to provide this service. In 1871, the Ministry of Post and the Directorate of Telegraph were united under the name of Ministry of Post and Telegraph.

In 1876, an international postal transportation network was established and in 1901 money orders began to be accepted. After the establishment of the first manual telephone exchange in Istanbul on May 23, 1909, the Ministry of Post and Telegraph was turned into the Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone. It took the name of the General Directorate of Post, Telegraph and Telephone in 1913.

The General Directorate served as part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the early years of the Turkish Republic, eventually becoming part of the Ministry of Public Works and Settlement as an annexed budgeted administration in 1933, and since 1939 has been carrying out its services as part of the Ministry of Transport.

The agency's extensive countrywide network includes 4,416 offices, 40,000 workers and over 7000 vehicles. Nearly all offices provide customers with inexpensive and reliable banking services with PTT Bank which was introduced in March 2004. Money transfers via the agency's network are cheaper than ordinary bank transfers. 

The country's post office will celebrate its 174th birthday with a variety of activities including a stamp exhibition in Istanbul, and offering a present to every174th customer at some branches.  

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