The Postal Monitor is kept up to date so that you cannot draw Russian addresses while sending from a country that is unable to deliver mail to Russia. Postcards to Russia, Belarus, China, Japan, and Taiwan all just take a really long time to arrive, and that has been my experience as long as I’ve been participating in Postcrossing. This is partially due to the fact that each country has to translate the English address to the local language address to make it easier to deliver. Many Postcrossers in these countries provide 2 addresses, one in English and one in the local language. You can speed up how long it takes for cards to arrive by printing out the local language address and sticking it on the postcard so that it doesn’t have to wait to be translated after arriving in that country.
I am also disappointed when it takes a really long time for postcards to Russia to arrive, but that’s just part of the game. Sending postcards via travel mode is supposed to be basically the same as sending from that country if you lived there. Plus, Russian postcrossers send a ton of postcards annually- 402,525 in 2023, which means that 402,525 postcards need to be sent back to Russia, and there are a limited number of countries where those cards can come from.
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