GB-1711329 was registered today. I sent the initial one early December when I got the address and a second card late January when the first one was about 10 days off expiry.
Recipient told me in their hooray message they got both together today so goodness knows what happened there.
Also have a couple more travelling languishing between 20-40 days.
Would be interesting if there’s any official Postcrossing data on how GB-RU is performing time-wise lately.
You are lucky to have so few travelling to these countries! Of my 138 current travelling cards (yes 38 of these have expired and are unlikely to be registered) these are my figures:-
Belarus - 10 travelling (4 expired)
China - 16 travelling (8 expired)
Russia - 41 travelling (11 expired)
Taiwan - 7 travelling (6 expired)
So of my 138 cards travelling, 74 are travelling to these countries and I will be very lucky if ten will be registered. If you calculate the cost of postcards and postage, it means almost £200 utterly wasted, and that doesn’t include the expired cards to other countries.
Can anyone beat that?
That is a lot of cards travelling to those countries (and a lot of expired cards too)! I have 10 cards travelling to Russia, Belarus, and China, out of a total of 22 travelling cards, so proportionally that’s similar (though obviously much smaller numbers).
I don’t ever think of money spent on Postcrossing as wasted. Yes, I like it when a card gets registered, but I also enjoy choosing cards and stamps and writing messages to people, and let’s not forget that I get a card back for every one I send: the money I spend on cards and stamps also ensures that I get something more interesting than bills and junk mail most days of the week.
However, when postcards are sent and not registered or not received, that is money wasted!
I now have 135 cards travelling including 46 to Russia, 13 of which have already expired. Very few of my expired cards get registered. But I must confess I still enjoy sending postcards and, when possible, choosing the right card. That’s more important to me!
I had a card arrive last month from Russia that took 144 days and today I received
After a travel time of 90 days. It seems that Russian card times have really slowed down lately. My sent cards are taking much longer to arrive, as well.
I really am starting to feel low about my official cards. Until yesterday I had only three of my sent cards registered all month. Over half of my 12 cards are going to Russia or Belarus and yesterday I finally had a Belarusian card registered after 51 days. I have none going to Europe and my other travelling cards are going to Taiwan, China, etc. I have received significantly more than I have sent. I have just requested a new address: Russia.
I don’t mind my cards going to the same countries but when every official card I send has a travel time of almost two months, or hopefully a little less, it is hard to feel like I can participate fully in the project.
I do love the RRs and tags and they are keeping me busy and happy.
I’m so sorry to hear this Elisabeth 
have you tried requesting addresses at different times of day? Late in the evening here when most Russian’s are in bed, and not registering cards, seems to have worked for me recently, but that could just be a coincidence.
Also I find my cards travel quicker when I use the Cyrillic address, so I’m always disappointed when they haven’t listed it that way x
Hello @mwntimperial. I do think it is very frustrating when you have lower numbers of sent cards and therefore have fewer slots. This really compounds the problem of slow travelling times. When I had ‘unlocked’ more slots I found that my long waits and frustration were less noticeable. What I am trying to say is when you start, for the first year or so, Postcrossing can be really slow, but it does pick up and get better I promise. I know this doesn’t make it better now. x
I also agree with @EmmaG. I request more at the weekends and I get more varied addresses (sometimes - not always). Don’t know why. Time of day definitely makes a difference. Sometimes I print my addresses on a (label) printer too, think that helps x
Thank you both for understanding! I always print the addresses off if there is an address provided in the Cyrillic alphabet but if not I usually save paper by writing it out. Perhaps a label-maker would help…
I have found recently that my addresses seemed to be a very tit for tat system whenever I requested them. So, if I had a card registered in Germany, the next address I drew was very likely to be Germany, but lately it seems that all my cards are to Russia, Belarus, China or Taiwan with a very small sprinkling of USA.
Until this kicked in I had a good rhythm going of a card bring registered every day or so because I always had a couple going to Germany, the Netherlands and so on. It is hopefully just a rough patch but it’s a bit dispiriting especially when you read the profile to find a long list of demands and requests for ‘presents.’
I will carry on and hopefully it will improve soon! 
I’m in a similar situation, recently took the plunge and turned on “repeated countries”, knowing I’d probably get a lot of Russia. With 11 travelling, even if they all take 60+ days that means I get to send another every 5-6 days on average. In reality they always seem to arrive in clusters, with long waits in between.
My current frustration is an American who logs in daily but seems to register his cards in batches once or twice a month - most recently 117(!) on 20 April. So it’s not just Russia 
However, I have a couple of holidays coming up so I’m trying to convince myself that it doesn’t matter when my travelling cards arrive, as I’ll be saving those slots anyway to use in travel mode 
It feels like I’ve drawn more addresses to Russia recently but it might be because I’m sending official cards more frequently and have more slots, and so quite a few are now in my travelling list. Over half of my 17 travelling cards are to either Russia / Belarus, plus another 2 which are expired.
I’m finding this too. The majority of my cards going to these countries plus the US, very few to Europe.
Agreed.
It seems that we’re all seeing the same pattern. I wonder why we’re getting fewer addresses to Europe, especially Germany?
One thing I have noticed over the last couple of years is…May is a slow month. Even though I can have masses of postcards travelling (44), I would never expect to have that many travelling, usually around 30, but because it’s May, my travelling postcards are not being registered at what I would call a normal rate, so I currently have 39 travelling and I’m probably going to draw another address or two later on. The good news is, we’re more than half way through the month, so things should pick up for all of us soon. Let’s hope so.
Well, I’m glad it’s not just me. Thanks for you responses, everyone!
Update! One of my expired cards travelling to Russia was registered along with 2 other cards this afternoon. 2 new addresses have been drawn, 1 is on it’s way back to Russia 
10/17 of my travelling cards are now on their way there or to Belarus 
I don’t think I’m drawing any less German addresses, but because they travel a lot quicker I could send 5/6 cards consecutively using the same slot to Germany as 1 card takes to get to Russia. So proportionally I don’t have as many travelling to Germany at one time.
Two of my cards were finally registered over the weekend. I drew two new addresses this morning and got Brazil and Germany. Obviously, I don’t know whether this is the time of day or if it was finally time for me to get a different country but I’m not complaining! 
Yey! Very pleased for you Elisabeth x
Is this a record?
Of my 138 travelling cards (yes, 38 of those have already expired and are unlikely to be registsred) no less than 49 are travelling to Russia - that’s more than 35%! 
On the other hand, A card I sent to China yesterday has already been registered because the member has moved.
Out of the 10 I have currently travelling 5 are going to Russia. Two are going to China, two are going to USA and one to Finland. I have an expired one going to China. The Chinese/Russian addresses have been travelling in excess of 30 days.
I want to send more but I am going on holiday soon. I am afraid of drawing chinese and Russia addresses so it’s putting me off drawing any in case i dont have any slots free when i am on holiday. Or if i have a few and draw Chinese/Russian addresses whilst on holiday. It’s putting me off postcrossing as everyone knows postage isnt cheap.
I had a postcard to a Postcrosser in Russia reach them in 0 days once. They logged a change of address in their Postcrossing profile before I even had a chance to write their postcard, let alone post it! I sent them a message requesting their new address, to which they replied, so I was able to send them the postcard that they were owed to their new address.