We also noticed here that mail to and from Russia is slower than usual at the moment. The reason is unknown, but postcards still come. We just have to be more patient.
I recently received this card
Dear friends, we have such a big problem in Russia right now. We send postcards to Europe and around the world, but the postcards are not delivered to the recipients. The delay in the delivery of mail from Russia has been more than 50-60 days. I think this problem is related to the failure of the postal service in our country. We all hope for the best! I wish you all patience!
I have to add that postcards are delivered slowly within Russia too.
And one more addition: I received a card on tag from UK. It travelled about 30 days
How is everyone else finding post to Russia at the moment? (I know thereās a thread in the non-UK part of the forum, but I wanted to get othersā take here first.) It seems as though for the last few weeks, nothing much is getting through. Could it be a seasonal thing? Fewer planes to Turkiye, and from Turkiye to Russia now weāre not in the tourist season? These are my travelling postcards at the moment:
And these are the only ones registered in the last 60 days:
Or maybe Iām the only one seeing a problem?
2 postcards from Moscow to me only took about 2 weeks but other postcards from and to Russia took a few weeks. Iāve been wondering what made those 2 so fast (this is not a complain of course )
Merry Christmas everyone! Got a sneaky 15 mins to be on here before dinner is ready!
Mine are all taking around 50 days and nearly expiring! But a few days I received a card from Russia in just 2 weeks - it was in an envelope so that may have been the difference!
Russia is very Inconsistent,
I have had Postcard travel from Southern England to the Black Sea Coast in 9 days, yet most travel in the 40-50 days region.
I think it must just be a bit of bad luck on my part. Iāve looked at the stats for the top UK postcrossers and their percentage of sent postcards to Russia for November and December this year is about my average for the whole time Iāve been in Postcrossing - 14%. My average for the last 2 months is 8%. Letās hope I get a flurry of Russian registrations over the next couple of weeks.
That flurry of Russian registrations that I need has started! Hurray.
Edit: And another one ā¦
For what itās worth, here is my current position. I have a very large number of postcards travelling to Russia, around 40, of which more than 20 have expired. I discovered that all those posted locally (in Felixstowe, Ipswich sorting office area) sent to Russia, Taiwan, China and Belarus in recent months - and I mean ALL - failed to be registered. I experimented by posting a couple of batches in Colchester - hey presto, they are arriving! It seems to me that the Ipswich sorting office may be sorting my cards for those countries straight into an undesirable bin or other form of disposal.
Still on this subject, who else has noticed that the rankings for the top senders in the last 60 days are all from the USA and none of them are sending cards to Russia! I reckon they have ticked the āsame countriesā box!
Technically I believe the USPS is still not delivering mail to Russia, though there have been a few lucky cases where US cards have reached Russia directly (without writing via Germany, for instance)
It looks like I didnāt do enough research about the service from USA to Russia. The USPS suspended this service in 2023.
If it makes you feel any better, my cards to Russia and China are very slow
Reheating this thread in the light of the recently announced price risesā¦ My official travelling cards seem to have ground to a halt lately with 6 of my 13 card allowance en route to either RU or BY even with repeated countries off.
Thatās not counting three expired cards this year too.
Anecdotally it seemed to get better for a bit but now it seems to have slowed. Whatās everyone elseās recent experiences ?
With the planned increase to 2.50 a card this is going to hurt even more, especially when even with returned countries off nearly 50% of my allowance is going to these countries still.
Iām lucky, my sent cards to Belarus and Russia over the past year have generally been OK.
These are my travelling cards:
Itās difficult to say on a sample size that small whether there have been any changes recently, but Iād be interested to know what other people are experiencing
Ā£2.50 for an international stamp?! That is really steep! I find that pretty depressing.
My cards are also moving incredibly slowly at the moment. Iāve only got 11 slots and until Friday night I had 6 of those going to Russia or Belarus. On Friday one was registered in Russia after 53 days and with a US card arriving the next day I drew two new slots which were Germany and France, for which Iām grateful purely because they are likely to arrive more quickly and just keep things moving a bit. I donāt mind where my cards go but itās not fun when you canāt send any for ages.
Iāve got the UK option ticked (although Iāve only ever drawn one UK address) and Iām starting to get involved with the UK tags and RRs, which I guess I will do increasingly as prices rise.
Out of my first 5 cards (Iām new) I had Germany, but then Russia, Belarus, China and USA. So I shall be partaking in tags too I had no idea how slow usa had got, as I have a penpal over there and Iām sure hers get to her within a fortnight
Iāve just written to the Royal Mail Freepost address to complain about the planned price increases. I guess itās pretty inevitable but at least itās doing something.
My average for the USA is 17 days for sent cards, 39 for Belarus and 36 for Russia. China is 32 days.