27/At the postoffice

The Post-office is a great service industry in Britain and one of the biggest employers in Europe, it employs about one in sixty of all workers in this country (17,000 staff). It's made up for four large businesses, Posts, Telecommunications, Giro, and Data Processing Services.

The post-office gives the services which customers require. Us main task is to deliver mail: newspapers, magazines, telegrams, parcels. Here you can also buy envelopes, stamps, postcards, pay communal services. At the post office you can have some services -similar to those available in banks.

You can find post-office in every town and city, but there are numerous sub post-offices in suburbs and in smaller places.

Now let us pay a visit to a local post-office. There are many of windows with a notice in big letters showing the operation handled. The first one is marked "Parcel Post", the "next one is "Money Orders". Then there’s one marked "Post Restante"(Сообщение востребования) . Going down the line you will see: "Stamps", "Post Cards", “Stamped Envelopes", "Registered Letters", "Air Mail". In some conspicuous(заметный) places you will find a board with the postal rates(почтовые тарифы). This will give you information about how many stamps are needed for inland and foreign letters that is how much postage must be paid on those letters. Then somewhere near the entrance you will see a notice giving the hours of delivery. The windows marked "Parcel Post" handles all parcels or packages. Don't forget to insure your parcel if you've got something really valuable in it. This cost to buy a trifle, but makes delivery double sure. The larger post-office even maintains a wrapping and packing service.

If you want to send printed matter (newspapers, magazines, books) you'll have to go to the window marked “Book Post".

The "Post Restante" window keeps mail until it is called for.

The post-office maintains this service for those who prefer to pick up their mail in person.

Of you are in a hurry to post a letter and have no stamps at the moment that does not keep you from sending it. Just mark it “Collect and the addressee pays the postage due'1.

When sending a letter of particular value, you should have it registered (with or without declared value). The advantage of this service is that registered letters are not left with the ordinary mail in the letter box, delivered personally (the addressee has to sign them). The sender is given a receipt at the post-office so he can always trace a letter. Of course, there will be a special charge.

The "Money Orders" window needs almost no explanation. You may send money orders by mail or by telegram and whatever you do, don't lose the receipt.

Post service in Belarus

The first post-office in Minsk was founded in a brick four-storeyed building in Gubematorskaya Street (now Lenin Street) where a sport store is situated nowadays. The first mail boxes were installed in the most densely populated areas at Troitskaya Gora, at Krasnaya Goika and another box was installed at, entrance of the post- office.

Being admitted to the service postmen had to give an oath or a written promise that they wouldn't participate in strikes. The women were admitted to the post-telegraph service in 1864 on condition they would never get married. In addition they were supposed to have secondary education and were obliged to know not less than two foreign languages (another demand was that they could speak not less than two foreign languages).