If you have postcards traveling to Russia right now, itās very likely that they are taking longer than usualā¦ and you should know that this is not normal.
We have noticed that over the past weeks nearly no postcards from Finland are reaching their destinations in Russia. In fact, since around early July that nearly no postcards are being registered, going very quickly from an average of 500 postcards/week to single digit numbers! This means that there are now thousands of postcards with travel times going over 60 days, on a route that the average travel time is 25-30 days.
According to Posti itself, this route should be working at the moment. However, our data shows that something is amiss somewhere. We have not found any other (big) destination from Finland that is experience this and, at least for now, postcards from Russia seem to be arriving in Finland at normal volumes.
Considering this, we have temporarily blocked the route from Finland to Russia on the postal monitor, until at least the already traveling postcards start to arrive. This update is unlike others we do on the postal monitor where we do our best to follow an official source, but we think that in this case the data is very clear that the route is not working for whatever reason (I guess Postcrossing is the source in this case).
Iām sorry to be the messenger of not so great newsā¦ I hope that weāll be able to restore this route very soon. We are currently trying to contact Posti about this hoping to at least get some insight into what is happening. Weāll post on this topic if thereās any updates.
Thanks for the heads-up @paulo ! Please donāt be sorry for being the messenger of these news, I for one appreciate your honesty and diligence in informing us I recently sent an official card to Russia, about two weeks ago, so itās good to know it may take a lot longer than usual.
So it isnāt just meā¦ I have been wondering why so few of my cards to Russia have reached their destination lately. I have many official and RR cards travelling to Russia and most of them have been on the road for 6-9 weeks already. The travel time for cards from Russia has been normal.
Thank you for the information. I have been concerned about this also. I attend an exchange group in the Russian social media VKontake since early July. I have sent a little over 30 cards to Russia since then and only 2 have arrived (plus one in Byelorussia and one in Kazakstan). I have received cards from there in 2-4 weeks. As soon as I realized the problem, I stopped sending new cards, until those on the way start arriving. It would be very interesting to find out whatĀ“s going on.
Thank you so much for this information, @paulo, I really appreciate it that you let us all know and keep investigating the matter! Like others, I thought I was just having a really bad luck with my cards to Russia, so itās reassuring to know that Iām not the only one and there really is something going on here. I hope the situation will resolve soon, whatever the cause is!
At the moment, I have 6 expired cards to Russia, which I think is a lot since I only started Postcrossing again (after a lengthy break) in late March. Many of them have expired just recently, and one is about to follow just about now. I also have 12 out of my 15 traveling (non-expired) cards on their way to Russia, and it makes me very sad to see them travel for ages without getting thereā¦ This probably means that it will take me ages to catch up, since I already have received 14 cards more than I have sent. Itās frustrating not to be able to send more. So I really appreciate the Postcrossing team for temporarily blocking the route! Itās not that I wouldnāt like to send to Russia, but I just donāt want to be stuck with almost all of my cards waiting to expire. And I still definitely want to keep sending to repeated countries.
Okay, thankfully others have this same issue. I have been wondering why my cards doesnāt get trough, even I have written the adresses in cyrillic letters.
We have been following this, but Iām afraid I donāt have much in the way of news to share: the postcards from Finland to Russia that were taking a long timeā¦ still havenāt arrived. Some of those postcards are now reaching 90 days of travel time.
Our attempts to get Posti and the Russian Post attention to this have had limited resultsā¦ at least in terms of getting some information about whatās happening. We provided the data about it and we hope that our contact has at least gotten their attention into the oddity of what is happening (if they didnāt know about it yet).
Itās not the first time that we spot issues with mail routes through Postcrossingās data. What is particular with this one is that itās rare that an issue is this clearcut where mail seems to have stopped. Usually the problems are reflected in an increase of average travel times and/or a slow deterioration of service, but often mail continues to arrive ā just at a slower rate. In this case, it seems that mail sent after early July has just stopped reaching their destination.
To give some perspective to this, hereās a breakdown per week of postcards sent from Finland that have (to this moment) reached their destination in Russia.
Week
From
Until
Sent&Delivered
1
2021-01-03
2021-01-09
428
2
2021-01-10
2021-01-16
259
3
2021-01-17
2021-01-23
352
4
2021-01-24
2021-01-30
530
5
2021-01-31
2021-02-06
553
6
2021-02-07
2021-02-13
675
7
2021-02-14
2021-02-20
674
8
2021-02-21
2021-02-27
628
9
2021-02-28
2021-03-06
681
10
2021-03-07
2021-03-13
753
11
2021-03-14
2021-03-20
728
12
2021-03-21
2021-03-27
726
13
2021-03-28
2021-04-03
645
14
2021-04-04
2021-04-10
562
15
2021-04-11
2021-04-17
552
16
2021-04-18
2021-04-24
605
17
2021-04-25
2021-05-01
577
18
2021-05-02
2021-05-08
558
19
2021-05-09
2021-05-15
659
20
2021-05-16
2021-05-22
689
21
2021-05-23
2021-05-29
574
22
2021-05-30
2021-06-05
506
23
2021-06-06
2021-06-12
528
24
2021-06-13
2021-06-19
590
25
2021-06-20
2021-06-26
438
26
2021-06-27
2021-07-03
469
27
2021-07-04
2021-07-10
185
28
2021-07-11
2021-07-17
10
29
2021-07-18
2021-07-24
9
30
2021-07-25
2021-07-31
14
31
2021-08-01
2021-08-07
6
32
2021-08-08
2021-08-14
2
33
2021-08-15
2021-08-21
20
34
2021-08-22
2021-08-28
4
Itās important to note that the last column is NOT the number of postcards received in that week. It is the number of postcards sent that week that have already arrived (which usually happens in a different later date). In other words, the data is grouped by sent date as that helps to see that since early July something changed in this route and postcards havenāt reached their destination yet.
The recent small numbers since mid-July are unlikely to be from real mail delivery; most likely are due to receivers closing their accounts (which automatically register incoming postcards) or changing their address and requesting that incoming postcards are registered.
I have not included the most recent weeks not just because we blocked the route (Sep/11) but also because postcards sent more recently wouldnāt have had time to arrive anyway, considering the average travel times in this route is ~4 weeks.
We will continue to monitor this and I hope that my next update will be to share some good news.
Just a quick update: we are seeing some changes with some of the postcards that were stalled slowly starting to arrive. It is single digit percentages of what was sent but the trend is on the right direction. Weāll continue to monitor it and when about half of the postcards sent in early July have arrived, weāll probably restore the route again.
This is good news! Many have now written that some of their cards to Russia have been registered. Letās hope all finds their way to receivers. There is also FI-4000000 going just to Russia.
One of my cards to Russia has been registered, too! And only after 28 days of traveling, which is quite normal for Russia. It was the last card I sent to Russia before this mail route was blocked. I really hope the other ones will start to arrive, too!
// Another card sent in early September reached its destination after 35 days of traveling!
// And two more, now theyāre arriving in a bulk!
I have got five cards still traveling to Russia, sent between JUL 1st - SEP 1st (none of that period sent have arrived) plus three before that time. But I just received two cards from Russia in 15/16 days!!
Hopefully all the travelling cards from Finland to Russia will be delivered. I have currently 30 postcards travelling of which 10 are already expired and the rest of them about to expire.
I recently sent an official card to Russia, about two weeks ago, so itās good to know it may take a lot longer than usual.
This probably means that it will take me ages to catch up, since I already have received 14 cards more than I have sent. 
Itās frustrating not to be able to send more. So I really appreciate the Postcrossing team for temporarily blocking the route! Itās not that I wouldnāt like to send to Russia, but I just donāt want to be stuck with almost all of my cards waiting to expire. 
And I still definitely want to keep sending to repeated countries.
And only after 28 days of traveling, which is quite normal for Russia. It was the last card I sent to Russia before this mail route was blocked. I really hope the other ones will start to arrive, too!
