What Information the Courier Needs to Deliver Your Flowers

The bouquet is ready — garden roses cut that morning, stems wrapped in aqua packaging to keep them hydrated for the journey — and then the order stalls because the address field says 'the big grey building near the metro.' This happens more than you would expect, and it is almost always fixable before the courier leaves the shop. Knowing exactly what details to provide, and why each one matters, is the difference between a delivery that arrives crisp and on time and one that sits in a van while the driver calls three wrong numbers.

Full Name of the Recipient: Why 'My Wife' Is Not Enough

Every delivery starts with a name, and that name needs to be the one the recipient will recognise when a courier calls or rings the intercom. In Russian apartment buildings, intercoms often display a surname next to the flat number, and residents may not open the door for a caller who cannot confirm who the flowers are for. If you are sending to a workplace, a full name is essential because a receptionist will not hand over a bouquet to an unnamed 'colleague on the third floor.' First name and surname together take five seconds to type and eliminate an entire category of failed deliveries. Some customers worry about spoiling a surprise by using the recipient's real name, but the courier only uses it to locate the right person — the flowers themselves, the note, and the moment of opening are still entirely yours to control. If the recipient goes by a nickname or shortened name at home, include both: 'Ekaterina, goes by Katya' is genuinely useful information. When the order involves a corporate address or a gated residential complex, a full name also allows security staff to verify the delivery against a visitor list, which many Moscow and Saint Petersburg business centres now require. Getting this right costs you nothing and protects the condition of the flowers — a bouquet of ranunculus or tulips left in a warm lobby for twenty minutes while a courier tracks down the right person is already losing freshness.

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Phone Number: The Single Most Important Field in the Form

A working mobile number for the recipient is not optional — it is the primary tool the courier uses to complete a delivery. Russian apartment buildings vary enormously in how accessible they are. Some have a concierge who will accept the bouquet; others have a coded entrance door with no intercom, or an intercom system where the directory is out of date. In all of these situations, a direct call to the recipient solves the problem in under a minute. Without a number, the courier has no fallback and the delivery fails. Many customers fill in their own number instead of the recipient's, which works only if you are prepared to coordinate in real time — that means answering your phone, reaching the recipient, and passing instructions back to the driver, all while the bouquet waits. For surprise deliveries, the better approach is to give the recipient's number and ask the courier to call only when they are already at the building entrance, so there is no long warning. If the recipient is known to miss calls, a WhatsApp-capable number helps, since our couriers can send a quick message before attempting the door. Flowers such as peonies or open-headed sunflowers are particularly sensitive to sitting in a warm vehicle, so every extra minute spent locating a recipient matters. Double-check that the number is saved correctly — a single transposed digit is one of the most common reasons a delivery is delayed.

Street Address and Building Number: Russia Has More Than One Ulitsa Lenina

Russia has a specific address format that can be unfamiliar if you are ordering from outside the country. A complete address includes the street name, the building number, and often a corpus or stroenie number — these are secondary building identifiers used when a single plot contains more than one physical structure. Writing 'Nevsky Prospekt 10' might seem complete, but if the site has a corpus 2 and a corpus 3, the courier will arrive at a complex of buildings with no way to know which entrance to approach. Always include the corpus or stroenie if it appears on any official document for that address — a utility bill, a lease, or a delivery confirmation from another service. City districts in Saint Petersburg can also be relevant for large residential areas where street names repeat or where navigation apps default to the wrong end of a long road. If you are sending to a new development on the city's outskirts, the building may not yet appear in standard navigation databases, in which case a landmark or a saved geolocation pin sent via messenger is genuinely useful. The courier team can accept additional notes in the order comments field. Flowers travel in temperature-controlled conditions from our shop, but that window is not unlimited — a confused approach to a sprawling new district in summer heat affects even robust varieties like chrysanthemums and alstroemeria. Precision in the address field is the single fastest way to protect the quality of what you have ordered.

Entrance Number and Door Code: The Part Everyone Forgets

Large residential buildings in Russian cities — and Saint Petersburg has many of them, particularly the Soviet-era panel blocks and the newer complexes in peripheral districts — frequently have four, six, or even more separate entrances, each serving a different stairwell and set of apartments. Apartment 47 might be in entrance 2 while apartment 143 is in entrance 5, and there is no reliable way for a courier to deduce this from the apartment number alone. Providing the entrance number is therefore not a minor detail; it is often what determines whether the delivery reaches the door or circles the building. Equally important is the door code for the entrance, if one exists. Many buildings have a keypad lock on the ground-floor door, and without the code the courier cannot enter the stairwell. Codes change periodically, so even if you have sent flowers to this address before, confirm the current code when you place a new order. Some buildings in central Saint Petersburg have a concierge or porter on duty who can admit visitors, but this is not universal and cannot be assumed. If the building has a barrier or a gate before you even reach the entrance — common in newer gated complexes — the gate code or the name of the security post matters just as much. Roses, lisianthus, and spray carnations all handle a short wait reasonably well, but no flower benefits from standing in a cold stairwell entrance in February while a courier works through the wrong door.

Floor and Apartment Number: Why Both Are Needed Even With a Code

Once a courier is inside the building, the floor and the apartment number together determine the final thirty metres of the journey. In a building with a working lift and clear floor markings, this is straightforward. In a building where the lift is out of service, where the floor numbering starts from zero rather than one, or where the stairwell layout is non-standard — all situations that occur regularly in Saint Petersburg's older housing stock — an explicit floor number prevents the courier from knocking on the wrong door. Russian apartment numbers are assigned sequentially across the whole building rather than floor by floor, so apartment 34 could be on the second floor in one building and the fifth floor in another. Never assume the courier can calculate the floor from the apartment number. The apartment number itself must also be written clearly in digits, not described as 'the one with the green door' or 'last on the right.' If the apartment has a second nameplate or a security door with its own bell separate from the main entrance intercom, note this in the comments. For offices, include the floor and the room or office number, and if there is a reception that controls access to upper floors, say so. Delicate arrangements — open garden roses, ranunculus, anemones — begin to show stress within minutes in a warm corridor. Getting the courier to the right door on the first attempt is the most direct way to ensure the flowers arrive the way they left the shop.

Delivery Time Window and Special Access Instructions

Specifying a delivery time window does not simply tell us when to dispatch — it also tells us what conditions the courier is likely to encounter. A midday delivery to a business district means navigating office security and peak-hour traffic. An evening delivery to a residential building means the recipient is more likely to be home but the parking near the entrance may be blocked. Giving a two-hour window rather than an exact minute is realistic and actually produces better results, because it allows the courier to account for traffic without rushing, which matters when the van is carrying tall arrangements of delphinium or branches of flowering cherry that cannot be jostled. If the recipient has a lunch break at a specific time and that is the only window when they can accept the delivery, state this clearly and we will plan around it. Special access instructions belong in the order comments: 'the intercom panel is inside the first gate, not at the street entrance,' or 'the concierge will only accept deliveries before 20:00,' or 'the lift is broken, apartment is on the fourth floor.' These notes reach the courier directly and are read before departure. If the delivery address is a hospital ward, a hotel room, or a guarded government building, say so at the point of ordering — each of these locations has its own access protocol and we need to know in advance. The goal is always to deliver without interruption, because every unplanned stop costs the flowers time and temperature.

Filling in an address form carefully takes two minutes at most, and those two minutes protect everything that comes after — the freshness of the stems, the timing of the surprise, and the condition of whatever variety you have chosen, whether that is a compact bunch of spray roses or a large mixed arrangement with branches and seasonal foliage. The details that seem bureaucratic — the corpus number, the entrance code, the floor — exist because Russian urban addresses are genuinely complex, and a courier navigating an unfamiliar district needs precise information to do the job well. When every field is complete and accurate, the delivery runs exactly as planned: the flowers leave the shop in good condition, travel in the right temperature, and reach the right person at the right door. Подробнее об этом — в статье «Same-Day Flower Delivery in Russia: What Is Realistic». Доставим букет по России за 1–2 часа.