Delivering a letter and giving an injection: rural postal workers are set to be given new responsibilities to "overcome staff shortages and low wages."

Postal workers will be offered additional responsibilities to help them earn a little more and stay employed. Russian Post itself has no plans to pay them more due to the low or negative profitability of rural post offices.  

After undergoing "special training," postal workers will be able to "diagnose illnesses and perform simple medical procedures," writes the Parliamentary Newspaper. Or, after their main job, they can take on a second job—issuing books at the library. Or, they can work part-time as a courier.

Some regions already have experience combining post offices with first-aid posts. For example, in the Ulyanovsk region, postal workers can take blood pressure or temperature, as well as "identify signs of dangerous diseases." They receive additional pay from the regional budget for this service. In the Leningrad and Smolensk regions, postal workers "in their spare time" work as librarians, which are also in short supply. There are plans to expand this approach nationwide. Senators in the Federation Council have approved the idea.

Rural post offices are closing across the country as employees quit due to low wages. For example, in the Altai Krai, in 2023 shut down 182 post offices. In Tatarstan, it was reported о shortage about 450 employees. In the Nizhny Novgorod region, Russian Post falls out correspondence piles up on the street, and residents themselves search for letters and receipts.