On April 22, 2020, the Czech Post issued a postage stamp as part of the "Europe. Ancient Postal Routes" issue.
The stamp drawing is based on an old horse carriage for transporting mail. The artist Jan Maget added yellow and blue to the original drawing, which symbolize the modern Czech post office, thus creating a visible connection between the past and the present of the postal service in the Czech Republic.
The beginnings of regular exchange of messages date back to antiquity. It used to be the privilege of the monarch and his agenda and was rarely available to the public. In the Czech lands, the development of postal services began with the arrival of the Habsburgs. Regular postal services, or organised transportation of messages in today’s territory of the Czech Republic, are associated with the election of Ferdinand I as King of Bohemia; they were established even before the Habsburg king ascended to the Czech throne in 1526. Ferdinand I took advantage of the services and experience of the noble family of Taxis, who had organised postal transportation in northern Italy and a large part of Europe almost without any competition since the end of the 13th century. The oldest postal route connecting Prague and Vienna led through Tábor and further to the village of Košice, where it was divided into two branches. The southern branch led to Linz and the eastern branch led through Jindřichův Hradec and Slavonice further towards Vienna.
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