Russian addresses run from the recipient down to a six-digit postal index on the last line, and many towns need an oblast (region) line that Moscow and St. Petersburg skip. Street lines lean on abbreviations like ul. (street), d. (house) and kv. (apartment), and the address is often written in Cyrillic. Here is the correct structure, a real example, the index rules, and the mistakes that trigger returns.
A Russian address runs from the recipient down to the index: name, street with house and apartment numbers, city, oblast where required, the six-digit index, then the country. This is the order Russian Post and couriers expect.
Ivan Petrov personal or business recipient; domestic labels often use surname, first name and patronymicOOO Vesna optional, above the street lineul. Sovetskaya, d. 15, kv. 3 street (ul.), house (d.) and apartment (kv.), in that orderPodolsk the city or town of deliveryMoskovskaya obl. region, republic or krai; omitted for Moscow and St. Petersburg142100 6-digit index on its own line, before the countryRUSSIA required for inbound international shipmentsThe six-digit index is Russian Post's core routing field. The first three digits identify the region and sorting center, so a correct index places the parcel in the right oblast before the street text is even read.
The country-specific rules that generic autocomplete and single-line address fields tend to get wrong.
A Russian index is six digits, for example 142100, and the first three identify the region and sorting center. Truncating to five (a US ZIP habit) or padding to a foreign format breaks Russian Post routing.
Moscow and St. Petersburg are federal cities and skip the oblast, but a town like Podolsk needs Moskovskaya obl. because the same settlement name recurs across regions. Dropping the oblast leaves those addresses ambiguous.
Domestic Russian Post prefers Cyrillic, while international carriers need a romanized address plus the country line. Mixing scripts or using inconsistent transliteration (ul. Tverskaya versus Tverskaya Street) confuses both systems.
The street line packs several parts: ulitsa (ul., street), dom (d., house), korpus (korp., building block) and kvartira (kv., apartment). In multi-building complexes, dropping the korpus sends the courier to the wrong entrance.
Each of these passes a basic "is this field filled in" check but fails at the carrier, turning into a redelivery, a return, or an address correction fee.
14210 instead of 142100) breaks Russian Post sorting and forces manual routing.korp. 2 points to the wrong block within the same house number.ul. Sovetskaya and Sovetskaya Street across systems can cause address mismatches.kv. number, couriers cannot reach a specific flat in an apartment block.How the major carriers handle Russia addresses, and what your label needs to satisfy each one.
The national postal operator and last-mile partner for most inbound mail. Routing keys off the six-digit index, so validate it first.
The largest private courier and pickup-point networks for domestic ecommerce. They rely on a complete street, house, korpus and apartment, plus the correct index.
Major Western express carriers suspended inbound and outbound Russia service in 2022, so cross-border parcels now move largely through Russian Post and CDEK's international arm. Confirm current service before quoting delivery.
Address Guard checks Russia addresses against carrier and postal databases before the order ships, normalizes the format, and flags the errors that cause failed deliveries. 240+ countries, $0.05 per check.
Part of the Address Guard international address format guide, covering 240+ countries.