Will the Courier Call My Recipient in Russian Only?

This is one of the most common questions we get from customers ordering flowers from abroad or sending a bouquet to a foreign colleague living in Saint Petersburg. The short answer is yes, our couriers speak Russian as their primary language — but there are several practical steps you can take when placing the order so that the delivery goes smoothly even if the recipient does not speak a word of Russian. Getting this right matters, because a missed call means a missed delivery window, and fresh roses or ranunculus left undelivered for even two hours in a warm lobby start to lose their heads.

Why the Courier Calls at All Before Arriving

In Russia, ringing the doorbell without warning is considered impolite, especially in residential apartment buildings where the intercom system is often unreliable or coded. Couriers call ahead as a standard step — typically five to fifteen minutes before arrival — to confirm the recipient is home, get the door code if the building has one, and agree on where to meet. This is not optional procedure; it is how deliveries actually work on the ground in Saint Petersburg. Skipping that call often means the courier stands outside a locked entrance with no way in, and the bouquet sits in a cold stairwell or gets taken back to the shop.

The call itself is brief. The courier says who they are, names the street, and asks the recipient to come down or to give the entry code. It takes under a minute. But if the recipient hears rapid Russian and panics, they may hang up or simply not answer a second call, which triggers the same failed-delivery outcome. We have seen this happen with expat recipients in central Saint Petersburg neighborhoods like Petrogradsky and Vasileostrovsky, where international residents are common. The solution is not to eliminate the call — it is to prepare the recipient so they know what to expect when an unfamiliar Russian number appears on their screen. The sections below explain exactly how to do that, starting with what to write in the order comment field.

Bouquets we can deliver

Bouquet of 3 white lilies

$47

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What the Courier Actually Says During That First Call

The typical opening from our courier is something like: the shop name, the word for flowers — tsvety — and a question about whether the recipient is home. The courier may also say the street name. That is genuinely the full content of the call in most cases. It is not a long conversation, and it does not require the recipient to speak Russian back fluently. A simple da, meaning yes, or the door code read out digit by digit is enough to get the delivery moving. Knowing this in advance removes most of the anxiety for a non-Russian speaker.

The problem arises when the recipient does not recognize the shop name in Russian pronunciation, or when they are not expecting a call at all and assume it is spam. In Russia, unknown numbers are extremely common for legitimate calls — couriers, clinics, and delivery services all call from mobile numbers that look unfamiliar. If your recipient is from Germany, the UK, France, or anywhere outside the former Soviet Union, they may have a reflex to ignore unknown Russian mobile numbers entirely. That is the single most common reason flowers are not delivered on time to expat recipients. Preparing them with a text message before the delivery window — even just saying a courier will call from a Russian number today between noon and two — resolves this almost entirely. We explain below how to build that preparation into your order.

How to Use the Order Comment Field to Help Your Recipient

When you place an order on our website, there is a comment field intended for delivery instructions. Most customers use it for things like floor number or gate code. But it is also the right place to flag that the recipient does not speak Russian and to give us any information that helps the courier communicate. You can write in English — our team reads the comments before dispatching and will pass relevant notes to the courier. For example, you can write: recipient speaks English only, please text before calling, or recipient is a French speaker, the door code is 47B, she will come down when she sees the message.

A text message before the call works better than a call alone for non-Russian speakers because they can read it at their own pace, use a translation app if needed, and then be ready when the phone rings. Ask us in the comment field to send a text first, and we will instruct the courier accordingly. You can also write a short message yourself to your recipient before placing the order — tell them the approximate delivery window, tell them to expect a Russian mobile number, and tell them the single word tsvety so they recognize what the call is about. Combining your own heads-up message with a note in our comment field covers both sides of the communication gap and keeps a bouquet of garden roses or lisianthus from sitting in a hallway going dry.

Delivery to Office Addresses and Reception Desks

If the recipient works in an office with a reception or security desk, the language problem largely solves itself. Our courier calls the number you provide, and if that number belongs to the company reception rather than the recipient personally, there is almost always someone at the desk who speaks enough Russian to receive the flowers and sign for them. Office deliveries in business centers across Saint Petersburg — particularly in the Moskovsky and Central districts — follow a straightforward pattern: the courier calls, identifies the delivery, and the reception staff bring the recipient down or accept the bouquet on their behalf.

Where this gets complicated is when you enter a direct mobile number for a foreign employee rather than the office main line. In that case, the same problem applies as with a home delivery. Our advice for office orders is to put the office main line or reception number as the primary contact number and add the recipient's name clearly so the receptionist knows who to call internally. You can include the recipient's personal number as a secondary contact in the comment field. This approach works particularly well for corporate gifts — mixed seasonal bouquets, arrangements with spray chrysanthemums or alstroemeria, and boxed compositions that need to arrive intact and on time without confusion at the door. The reception desk acts as a natural buffer that makes language a non-issue.

Temperature, Timing and Why a Missed Call Is Costly for the Flowers

Fresh flowers are not patient. A bouquet assembled in the morning with hydrangeas, garden spray roses, and eucalyptus is built to be delivered within the two-hour window and placed in water by the recipient within the hour after that. If the delivery fails because the recipient did not answer the courier's call, the bouquet goes back into our van, which is temperature-controlled, but the delay still counts against the flowers' lifespan. A second delivery attempt the same day is possible in most cases, but it adds at least one to two hours to the total time the stems spend out of water.

Delicate varieties feel this most. Anemones, sweet peas in season, and open garden roses all begin to wilt at room temperature within three to four hours of being out of water. Sturdier stems like alstroemeria, standard chrysanthemums, and waxflower tolerate delay better, but even they look noticeably less fresh after a failed first attempt and a wait. This is the practical reason we emphasize preparing the recipient before the delivery window rather than hoping the call goes through. A thirty-second text from you to your recipient, sent an hour before the delivery slot, costs nothing and protects the condition of the flowers more reliably than any packaging upgrade. Think of it as part of the ordering process, not an afterthought.

Special Situations: Surprise Deliveries to Non-Russian Speakers

Surprise deliveries are the hardest case because by definition you cannot warn the recipient directly. If you are sending flowers as a surprise to someone who does not speak Russian, the best approach is to give us as much logistical detail as possible so the courier can complete the delivery with minimal verbal exchange. A precise apartment number, a working entry code, and a note confirming the recipient will be home during the window all reduce the courier's dependence on a successful phone conversation.

For apartment buildings without a doorman, we can also ask the courier to send a text message rather than call — the recipient can then show the text to a neighbor or use a translation app to understand it. This is not our default approach, but it is a reasonable request to make in the comment field. Some customers ordering surprise bouquets of tulips or peonies in season also ask a trusted friend of the recipient to be present at the delivery address without spoiling the surprise — someone who speaks Russian and can handle the intercom. That workaround is simple and effective. What does not work well is providing no information about the language situation and hoping the courier and recipient figure it out at the door. Our couriers are experienced and patient, but a language gap at an intercom panel with no prior notice is genuinely difficult to resolve quickly, and the flowers pay the price.

Sending flowers to a non-Russian speaker in Russia is entirely straightforward once you treat the courier's call as a step that needs the same preparation as the delivery address itself. Write clearly in the comment field, send your recipient a quick heads-up about the Russian number they should expect, and give us an entry code if the building has one. Our couriers will do the rest — arriving within the promised window with the bouquet in the condition it left the shop. We deliver bouquets across Russia in 1–2 hours.