Everything about the Russian Address Format
Before you send a letter or a gift to Russia, you need to learn everything about the Russian address format. Many people mistakenly think that it is O.K. to send a letter to Russia and type the Russian address in English. That is why they ask their Russian friends to translate the Russian address into English. But there is no need to do that. Even though a letter with an address written in English can reach its destination in Russia, it can only happen if the postman/postwoman is able to read it. There are only two rules of thumb about any international mail you need to remember:
- Write the sender’s address in the language, which is spoken in the country where you are sending the letter from (English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Turkish, etc).
- Write the destination address in the language, which is spoken in the country where you are sending the letter to (in this case, Russian).
The easiest way to make no mistakes about the address is to ask your Russian friend or girlfriend to type it out for you in Russian, so that then you can print it on your envelope or try to copy it accurately by hand. However, if you still want to know the Russian address format, see the following example.
| Example in Russian | In English |
| Кому: Иванов Иван Иванович | Name: <Last Name> <First Name> <Patronymic/ The name of a father > |
| Куда: Россия, Самарская обл., | Address: <Country>, <Area and/or Region >, |
| Тольятти, ул. Чернышевского, | <City/Town/Village >, <Street>, |
| д. 23, кв. 6 | <House Number>, <Apartment Number> |
| 445000 | <Zip Code> |
The following rules apply:
- The sender’s address is places in the upper left corner of the envelope, while the receiver’s address is in the lower right corner.
- In most countries, the full name is written as follows: first name, middle name, last name. In Russia the traditional way to address someone officially is by first calling their family name or last name, then their first name and then the patronymic, which is derived from the name of the person’s father.
- The address in Russian is written in the opposite order from the American. They start with the country and continue all the way to the apartment number, but then write the zip code on the very last line.
- Many abbreviations are used in Russian address. For example, it is quite possible to see some of these:
г. – before the name of a city
п. – before the name of a village
ул. - before the name of a street
д. - before the number of a house
кв. - before the number of the apartment
обл. – after the name of an area
р-н - after the name of a region
- The 6 digits of zip code are unique, as the code is always assigned to a certain location.