Anyone else’s cards to Russia take forever?

I was also always surprised by this fact, postcards go from us to Finland for a long time as well.

My current card to Russia has been traveling 28 days. I have more experience with packages from Russian to the USA – which take 5-8 weeks, and are often sent via private courier to be dropped in the Netherlands postal system instead of using the Russian postal system. I don’t suppose we have any inexpensive options for doing this as regular post card senders?

My other issue is the Baltimore Maryland USA distribution center. United States Postal System (USPS) has several centers at about 50% staffing right now due to COVID-19 and mismanagement in the past. So I frequently watch packages (which I can track) take a week or two to cross the world, and then sit 2-3 weeks a few miles from my house! Frustrating. Same thing happens with letters and post cards.

– Michael

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Hi, everyone. I’m from Russia/ I recieved envelopes from the US, e.g. lottery or swap in two weeks after it has been sent. But I’d like to admit that these two month our post works much better. In February it was a real desaster. Mail usually comes quickly in big cities. But there a lot of (more than just a lot of) small towns and villages that are very far from cities. Sometimes a post van goes there once a week.

Hi :raising_hand_woman: I’m from Russian Saint Petersburg but living in Shanghai, I send my mom 4 postcard and only one arrive. One my postcard to member in the same city already 300 days ex ( already send 2 postcard to same address) 🥲 definitely something wrong :expressionless:

From China, and most of the time cards to Russia are fast,(15-25days), but some of them also travelled 100+days. So I think it depends on geographic locations, Russia is big…

It was not so before the pandemic. But these days my mail to/from Finland travels slower than to/ from the rest of Europe, Singapore, the USA and Canada. The only exception is mail to/from China, India and Australia - for these countries it usually takes longer than to Finland. I don’t know how to explain this fact 🤷
P.S. Oh, I just remembered that mail travels rather slow to/ from the other Baltic countries too.

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The most important part of any Russian address is index. Please try to write it accurately. I have recently received a couple of cards where index was written sooo badly. I wonder how the sorting machine deciphered it. It one of these cases they managed to decipher it only with the help of people, for sure - there was a pen remark.
Sometimes rather strange things happen to mail.
Once I was sent 2 cards on the same day by a fellow postcrosser from the US. The first card arrived just in two weeks (or even 12 days, if I am not mistaken), for the second it took additional 2 weeks to reach me. That card was cancelled in the country of origin 3 times: 2 times on the back and on the front. The address was written quite ok. What happened to this card? Nobody can tell us!
Most of the cards sent to me arrive within 2-3 weeks. But there are rare exceptions when it takes a bit longer (30-50 days) mostly from India and China. I should also note that I live in Moscow, maybe that fact makes influence somehow.

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There are several big sorting centers throughout the country including those in the Urals region, Siberia and Far East. But these days with lesser flights between countries things can be like you have mentioned.

What is index?

Zip code/ postal code is called index in Russian. Sorry, I have chosen the wrong word. :sweat_smile:
Actually, according to our the postal rules it should be written in the last line, after the name of the city or even country (in case of international mail). But most people prefer to write it before the name of the country, I guess. This is not a big mistake.

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Sometimes I write it in the same line with country to save writing space

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That’s ok

That’s interesting. Actually, the rules of German post for international address format say the country should be written in the last line, in large letters (e.g. RUSSIA).

So there are different postal expectations in our two countries… :smile: I wonder whether this may slow down the (automatic) sorting processes?

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I don’t think it slows down the process, the system of sorting is not so simple as we might think))) Mail between Russia and Germany usually travels fast, by the way. Most of the postcrossers in Russia do not apply the mentioned rule and write the name of the country in the last line in capital letters.