Sending Flowers in Russia? Here Is Every Address Field You Need

You have chosen the bouquet, written the card, and picked a delivery window — and then the address form appears with fields you did not expect. Building number, entrance, floor, flat, intercom code. In Russia these details are not optional extras. They are the difference between a courier arriving at the right door in twelve minutes and standing in a courtyard of identical towers making phone calls. This guide walks through every field, explains why each one matters, and helps you fill them in confidently even if you have never sent anything to a Russian address before.

Why Russian Addresses Need More Detail Than You Might Expect

A Russian residential address works on a different scale from a typical Western one. In many European cities a street name and house number take a courier directly to a single front door. In Russia, especially in cities like Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Novosibirsk, or Kazan, one address can refer to a large residential complex with multiple buildings, dozens of entrances, and hundreds of flats spread across twelve floors or more. The building itself may sit inside a walled courtyard that is not visible from the street.

This layout is a legacy of Soviet-era urban planning, which favoured large standardised blocks built around shared courtyards called dvory. A single postal address on the street might cover four or five separate buildings, each with its own entrance system and intercom panel. When a courier arrives with a bouquet of garden roses or a tall arrangement of calla lilies, every minute spent searching is a minute the flowers spend in the cold or the heat.

Filling in every field on the delivery form is not bureaucracy for its own sake. It is the practical act of drawing a clear path from our van to the person you care about. When the address is complete, the courier walks straight to the right entrance, keys in the intercom code, rides to the correct floor, and hands over the flowers while they are still fresh and fragrant. That experience — the door opening to a perfect bouquet — is exactly what you are paying for.

Bouquets we can deliver

Bouquet of 1 yellow sunflowers

$12

Bouquet of 3 gerberas mix

$20

Bouquet of 3 red gerberas

$20

Bouquet of 3 white matthiola

$22

Street, House Number, and the Building Field That Confuses Most People

The first two fields — street name and house number — are familiar to anyone who has sent a letter anywhere in the world. In Russia the street name comes first, followed by the house number, written as a numeral. So far, straightforward. The complication begins with what Russians call korpus or stroenie, which both translate loosely as building or block, and which appear as a letter or number after the main house number.

Imagine an address listed as Nevsky Prospekt 45. That number might refer to a plot of land on which three separate residential buildings stand. They are distinguished as 45 korpus 1, 45 korpus 2, and 45 korpus 3. From the street they can look identical. The intercom panels, the entrance doors, and even the letterboxes are separate. Sending flowers to 45 without specifying korpus 2 means the courier must guess, and guessing wastes time and risks delivering white peonies to a stranger.

Some addresses use stroenie instead of korpus. The practical difference matters more to architects than to couriers, but you should copy whichever abbreviation appears on the official address exactly as written. If the person you are sending flowers to lives in a building with a letter suffix — for example, 12A — that letter is part of the house number and belongs in the house field, not the building field. When in doubt, ask the recipient to send you a screenshot of their address from a map application. It takes thirty seconds and removes all ambiguity.

Entrance Numbers: the Field Most Senders Skip and Couriers Dread

Once the courier locates the correct building, the next obstacle is finding the right entrance. In Russian this is called the podyezd, and a large residential building can have anywhere from two to twelve of them. Each podyezd has its own door, its own intercom panel, and its own staircase or lift serving a specific set of flats. Flat 47 is not accessible from podyezd 3 if it belongs to podyezd 5. The doors are usually locked.

Entrance numbers are marked on or beside the door, sometimes on a small metal plate, sometimes painted on the wall. They run sequentially from one end of the building to the other. If you know the flat number, you can sometimes work out the entrance by asking the recipient directly — they know which door they use every day. It is the single most useful question you can ask before placing your order.

For flower delivery this field matters enormously in winter. Saint Petersburg temperatures in January regularly drop below minus ten degrees Celsius. A courier standing outside a locked building with a bouquet of ranunculus or tulips — flowers that suffer quickly in hard frost — cannot afford to spend five minutes walking the length of a building looking for the right podyezd. The flowers chill, the petals bruise, and the beautiful arrangement you ordered arrives looking tired before it has even been unwrapped. Entrance number is a small detail that protects the quality of what you send. Please do not leave it blank.

Floor and Flat Number: Confirming the Final Step

Floor and flat number feel like the obvious fields, and most people do fill them in. But there are a few common mistakes worth knowing about. In Russia, floors are counted the same way as in most of continental Europe: the ground floor is the first floor. This differs from British English, where the ground floor sits below the first floor. If the recipient tells you they live on the third floor, write 3, and the courier will ride to the third floor from ground level. There is no conversion needed.

Flat numbers in large Russian residential buildings run continuously across the entire building, not per floor or per entrance. Flat 1 might be on the ground floor of entrance 1, and flat 200 might be on the top floor of entrance 8. This means the flat number alone does not tell you which entrance to use, which is exactly why the entrance field exists as a separate item.

Double-check that the flat number you have written matches what the recipient has given you. A single transposed digit — 74 instead of 47 — sends the courier to a completely different flat, possibly a different entrance, and certainly a confused stranger. If you are ordering as a surprise and cannot ask the recipient directly, check any previous correspondence, a shared calendar invite, or a food delivery confirmation they may have forwarded you. The flat number is almost always there. Getting it right means the moment of surprise stays a surprise and does not turn into an awkward phone call.

Intercom Codes: the Small Number That Opens Every Door

The intercom, called a domofon in Russian, is the electronic lock fitted to the entrance door of virtually every residential building built or renovated in the last thirty years. To open the door, a visitor presses a flat number on the keypad and waits for the resident to buzz them in, or enters a shared door code directly. Without one of these two things, the entrance stays locked.

For delivery purposes the most useful piece of information is the door code, if the building has one. Many buildings in Saint Petersburg use a simple numeric code that opens the entrance without calling any specific flat. Residents often know this code by heart and share it freely — it is not a security secret so much as a convenience for visitors. Ask the recipient for it when you place your order.

If there is no shared door code, the courier will ring the flat number on the intercom panel. This works perfectly well for standard deliveries, but it does spoil a surprise. If you are sending flowers as an unexpected gift and the recipient is home alone, ringing the intercom announces that someone is at the door before the bouquet is in their hands. In that case, consider asking a family member or neighbour who is also in the building to let the courier in, or simply accept that the element of surprise shifts from the arrival to the unwrapping. Either way, providing the intercom information — code or flat number — ensures the courier does not stand outside in the cold waiting and the flowers arrive in perfect condition.

Office and Commercial Addresses: a Different Set of Rules

Sending flowers to a workplace follows a slightly different logic. Office buildings in Russian cities range from small converted flats on the ground floor of residential buildings to large business centres with multiple towers, security desks, and visitor registration systems. The address fields you need depend on which type of building you are dealing with.

For a standard business centre, the street address and building number are usually enough to get the courier to the right place, because a reception desk or security guard will direct them from there. What helps enormously is the company name and the name of the recipient, written clearly in the delivery notes. A courier arriving at a large office building with a bouquet of sunflowers and a clear recipient name can ask at reception and be directed in under a minute.

For offices located inside residential buildings — a common arrangement in Russian cities, especially for small businesses and studios — all the same rules apply as for a flat delivery. Entrance, floor, and intercom code are just as important, and the office number replaces the flat number. Some offices have their own intercom code separate from the residential entrances. If the recipient works in this kind of space, ask them specifically whether the entrance they use is the main residential podyezd or a separate commercial entrance. Getting this right saves significant time and ensures that a birthday bouquet of garden spray roses or a congratulatory arrangement of hydrangeas arrives during working hours, not after everyone has gone home.

How to Collect and Check Address Details Before You Order

The best moment to collect a full address is before you open the order form, not while you are filling it in. If you are sending flowers as a gift, a simple message to the recipient asking for their full delivery address — including building, entrance, floor, flat, and intercom code — takes thirty seconds to send and removes every point of uncertainty. Most people are happy to share it, especially if they know something nice is on the way.

If the gift is meant to be a surprise, there are still ways to get the information without giving anything away. You can tell the recipient you need their address for an unrelated reason, or ask a mutual friend or family member who already knows it. Alternatively, check any food delivery or online shopping confirmation the recipient may have shared with you previously, since these almost always contain a full address.

Once you have the address, read it back against the order form field by field. Street name, house number, korpus or stroenie if applicable, entrance, floor, flat, intercom code. It takes less than a minute and it is the single most effective thing you can do to guarantee a smooth delivery. If anything looks uncertain — an entrance number that seems too high, a flat number that does not match the floor — send a quick follow-up message before confirming the order. Our couriers carry fresh flowers, not just packages, and fresh flowers are time-sensitive. A complete address on the first attempt means the bouquet arrives at its best, exactly when you intended, to exactly the right person.

A complete Russian delivery address is not a complicated thing once you know what each field is asking for. Street, house, building block, entrance, floor, flat, intercom code — seven pieces of information that together draw a straight line from our courier to the person you are thinking of. Fill in every field, double-check the numbers, and the rest takes care of itself. The flowers travel fast, arrive fresh, and the moment you imagined — the door opening, the surprise, the smile — happens exactly as you planned.