Hi. I’m from Bulgaria also. Most of my expired postcards are the ones send to Russia as well and also to Belarus. And this was before the pandemic. Here in Bulgaria our postal service is awful. Two years ago I send 3 postcards from Sofia to Sofia, they were for the same city and these cards have not arrived to this day.
So what can I say. I even wrote a complain, but since they were not tracked, they said there is no way to find out what happened.
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Yes. I’ve had 2 sent to Russia received on Postcrossing so far and I’ve received one from Russia on here so far.
Yes! This one arrived today after just 13 days:
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I’m in the UK and my cards to Russia normally take 15 to 30 days. However I recently had two delivered that took 85 and 153 days. None have ever been lost, so far.
I have been fairly lucky and have not had many expired cards so far. almost 300 sent. But those that have have all been to Russia. Doe4s anyone know the reason for this?
Hello @sherbert
Are the accounts offline for a longer time? I am always very sad to get a not activ account.
sometimes postcards can expird because …
→ the address is not correct
→ the writing is indistinct
→ the postcard get lost
Some tips from me 
Write the address always in capital letters and check the address.
That’s a gorgeous postcard you sent too!! 
My first official card I sent to Russia arrived today after 67 days. I have another one en route that’s been traveling for 53 days.
My recent cards (from Germany) to Russia seemed to arrive pretty fast. Half of them arrived within 15 days. The record was 9 days. Most would arrive within 20 days.
However, I do occasionally have problems with cards going to the U.S. Every now and then the travel time would exceed one month (users being active).
Yes! In fact, I love when I get Russian addresses because I know they will probably arrive super fast. Postcards from Brazil to Russia usually take only 30 days to arrive and I never had a single one of them lost. Sadly, cards to USA are taking a very long time to arrive, though, at least 3-4 months. I currently have 4 expired cards and 3 of them were sent to USA. And I’ve noticed my postcards are not reaching India at all for some reason. I did three personal swaps 7 months ago and none of them arrived. I re-sent them after 4 months and nothing. 
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I have four cards travelling to Russia now from Prague. One is 61 days, the other is 42 days “old” and I got two more Russian addresses this week, so I hope at least some of them will make it in the end.
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I recently opened my Post Crossing account and as luck would have it, my first recipient is to someone in Moscow.
I wrote the address in English but, since I can write in Russian Cyrillic, I wrote the street and town in Russian just next to the English.
I hope it’ll reach it’s recipient.
However, I wrote the post code before the city like when I write to a German address. Hope that’s not too big of a mistake. D.F. 
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My cards to Russia are overall received very quickly. Meaning within 3 weeks. I had one that took 59 days, but that was really the exception
There’s no need to use both languages, if you can write in Russian, that’s enough. You only should write the country in English, that’s what your postal system needs to know.
And I don’t change anything in the addresses, I trust people to give their addresses as they should be. 
But regarding this, I don’t like when pc system doesn’t let me change one thing in my own address 
it’s the country code before the post code, it’s really not needed but because it’s in my country’s “official postal code rules” and pc follows strictly those rules 
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Of course they follow the rules. Wouldn’t it be strange otherwise?
They want to help people receive the cards they’re sent to, and having properly written address is a good start.
Some people print the address and glue it, and always not well, sometimes the whole country is missing, then the country code tells it’s going to Finland. I know the mail arrives even without it, but there’s no harm having it there as far as I know.
Yes of course they follow the rule. But as you said, the code isn’t needed there in the address. Very few countries are using it, why should Finland use it. When I tell my address to someone, I never use it, there’s no need, mail arrives very well without it. I have even received a card from the UK without ‘Finland’ in the address.
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No I didn’t say that.
I certainly know well mail can arrive with deficient address, but that doesn’t mean some parts aren’t needed, especially in the bigger picture. (Or that I would say so.) I’ve received mail to a different country address, but that does not mean I would say we don’t need to update our addresses.
Like I don’t think you would suggest leaving the country out as a rule, because you received mail without it written.
Also, because alleged majority doesn’t do something, it does not conclude to that no one should. That’s how I think.
(Yes, this is off topic, I just commented this based on my impression that you didn’t understand why Postcrossing “makes” us use the official way to write our address like they were stupid or something to follow the rules (the laughing emoticon you used).
Edit. More off topic:
I had to check, in 2019 many German members changed my address and left the code out, but it’s added by hand. Also that year many German members wrote my city wrong, same way. (Now this is not that common.) That’s weird. I would never decide myself what part is important in others address,. And I try to write everything correct, but of course mistakes happen. Still I have tens of cards where my city is written same way wrong. Interesting.
In German Post standards, we’re told not to write the country code before the ZIP code, they say it confuses the sorting machines. Maybe that’s why.
I always copy the address just as it’s given by the recipient. 
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In international mail too? I thought the sorting machine takes the country, and all other parts are dealt in the destination country.
Yes, especially there.
And it’s not only told by Deutsche Post, it’s also teached at e. g. typing lessons at either school or any courses (there’s a special standard for such things).
Though I never had any problems writing
“FI - 11111 Helsinki” for example. All my mail reached its destination. Infact I cannot remember a single missing card or letter to FI.
But Russian addresses:
“…
…
…
RUSSIA
123456”
This could really confuse the sorting machines in Germany. I know from some friends that their mail went e. g. first to Berlin (because ZIP of Berlin starts with 1) and then it was forwarded. I think something similar happened also to someone at Postcrossing, though I cannot find the posting now.
I got a letter returned some years ago with “address unknown at…” - the mentioned city started the same ZIP as the region in Russia where I sent the letter to.
And in my early Postcrossing days I brought all mail to the post office and once the employee told me: “You know that German ZIP have only 5 digits?” - “Eeh, yes? Why?” - “You’ve written 6” - “Yes, but that’s a card to Russia?!” - “Oh yes, but then you have to write the destination country” - “Ehm, I did!? Look, here” - “Oh, that’s bad. You always have to write first the ZIP and last the country. Otherwise it could cause delay or undelivered mail!” 
Meanwhile I know that I find more reliable informations about Deutsche Post at my fellow German Postcrossers, but that’s really a point I always stumble upon.
Problem: of course it doesn’t happen always (luckily) and as long as you don’t use registered mail or at least one of the new matrix stamps here at Deutsche Post you’ll never know if a missing or delayed mail is caused by a confused sorting machine or any other reason. 🤷
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