Mailing to the Russian Federation: English or Cyrillic?

[theAnonymous1]

I have some small items I need to ship to two different individuals in Russia. One person gave me their address in english (St. Petersburg), and the other in cyrillic (Novosibirsk).

Which is correct, or at least preferred?

[counter culture]

Since postal services in countries not sharing the same alphabet are involved, I duplicated the mailing address on a few items I shipped to Россия. The post, however, proved unreliable and for the address in St.Petersburg we used a proxy in Finland and the company sent a courier to collect the items.

[Wavebourn]

I did not have any problems with transliteration, Russian postal workers understand Latin alphabet.

[jazko]

I regularly ship to Bulgaria, which uses pretty much the same cyrillic alphabet, but I always write down the address in latin. Haven't had problems at all. I suggest you use latin.

[Wavebourn]

Originally Posted by jazko

I regularly ship to Bulgaria, which uses pretty much the same cyrillic alphabet, but I always write down the address in latin. Haven't had problems at all. I suggest you use latin.

Right. I don't expect from American postal workers knowledge of Cyrilic alphabet.

[simon7000]

Действительно! Некоторые из них, кажется, не понимает английского языка.

[Wavebourn]

Originally Posted by simon7000

Действительно! Некоторые из них, кажется, не понимает английского языка.

你是絕對正確的。

[jazko]

Interestingly if you use cyrillic, how is the US post office going to read the address, so they can send it to the right destination ?

[kevinkr]

Originally Posted by jazko

Interestingly if you use cyrillic, how is the US post office going to read the address, so they can send it to the right destination ?

That's a good point.. I've never had trouble mailing stuff to Russia, although I will admit it is a very rare event. The other way not the case. (I love Russian teflon caps and certain tubes.)

[theAnonymous1]

Originally Posted by jazko

Interestingly if you use cyrillic, how is the US post office going to read the address, so they can send it to the right destination ?

I guess if you do send it in cyrillic that you just need to put "Russia" in english at the botton. USPS only needs to know what country it's going to and the rest doesn't matter to them.

I would put both english and cyrillic, but the Pitney-Bowes label system I'm using only allows one or the other.

I'm just going to send them both how they were given to me and see what happens. Worst case I lose $40.