The Russian mail "sucks" because there was a sudden horrifying jump in mail packages volume. Russian Postal Service wasn't prepared to that. It is doing progressively better as time goes.
1 I dislike very much the fact of being dragged into a discussion of this kind. Problems of Russian Mail are universally known.
2 Circa 2004 two my parcels arrived to different post offices late and cut open. There was no valuables inside (I wasn't that naive.) Ever since I used express services (DHL, TNT, PE)
3 I heard similar stories from other people (late&open)
4 Recently I received two packages by Russian Mail. They arrived late (1 month travel time) but were not open. An improvement.
5 Still I (we) use tracking to pick a parcel as local offices don't notify receivers. They let a package bounce silently. Forewarned is forearmed.
6 Lady at the post office was very kind.
7 Before receiving my parcels I was studying a vk.com official community for computeruniverse.ru clients, which is full of horror stories and detailed official 20-step instructions on how not to get screwed.
8 The same applies to letters, unfortunately. A local letter may travel for a month (even town hall officials complain about that).
9 A letter I sent from San Francisco arrived to Yekaterinburg in about three months. Just before I arrived myself.
1 You started that. They started not long time ago, you can see an onset of jokes about Russian Post Service on the popular jokes site bash.im (former bash.org.ru). This onset started about two or three years ago.
2 Me and my friends and relatives had not have problems at the same time.
7 I can cite you horror stories about everything. 20 steps to eat potato and not get screwed. I think you also heard about selection bias, do you?
10 I think you had to start with YMMV instead of ending with it. Because, you know, for every anecdote you tell I have another anecdote to tell you.
If you want to talk about cleptocracy, let's talk about US a little bit. Let's start from yellow light duration scandals (from the top of my head): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdD5fvYHtKQ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_light_camera#United_States_...