Hotel Mir   K   (No website.)   Phone: 7 (812) 108-4910 or 108-5166

Rates: Single 950 rubles ($31.67); double 1200 rubles ($40); suite 2400 rubles ($80).

Location Rating: Fair. It's buried in an unattractive residential area. An unusual church is next door. But lots of businesses are within walking distance on Moskovsky Prospekt. The hotel is located about 9 miles from the heart of the city. 

Proximity to Metro: Good. About a ten minute walk to the metro. Moskovskaya Metro Station.

Lobby Appearance: The outside appearance of the building looked bad, but when we saw the lobby it looked reassuring.

Room Appearance: They only showed us their best rooms (which they only have a few of). In comparison to the nearby Hotel Rossiya, these rooms are nicer. But I imagine most of the rooms at the Mir are unacceptable.

Useful Nearby Businesses: If you walk 7 or 8 minutes you'll be on busy Moskovsky Prospekt where you'll find all kinds of shops and eating establishments. There is also a Russian "Banya" facility diagonally across the street from the hotel. It is a Russian bath house.

Hotel Restaurants: I don't recall seeing one.

Other Amenities: No internet access here.

Would I Stay Here? I would prefer not to.

Staff Speaks English? Sorry - you're out of luck here. No English spoken.

Comments: If you are the adventuresome type, then maybe this might be an interesting spot for you. Since they don't have English language abilities, and since the building is kind of rough looking from the outside, and because it is far from the center of the city, maybe you should pass on this one. Watch out for the local traffic. People drive too fast through this neighborhood (and you must keep in mind that Russian drivers generally show little courtesy to pedestrians - translation: they'll run you over and consider it to be all your fault because you wouldn't get out of their way, and they'll think you deserved to get run over for it).

Morskaya Hotel   K  (website address unknown by staff)   Phone: 7 (812) 322-6069

Rates: Single $50; double $70; luxury suite $100.

Location Rating: Fair. The location is a sea port for international travel. It also is a port for unloading of cargo. Very nearby are 3 active smokestacks from a factory of some kind. Another smokestack in the neighborhood was not active on the day of our visit. The metro is far but it is quite easy to pick up a trolleybus or mini-bus which will take you there. A small park is nearby and old apartment buildings. But there really are no interesting shopping areas nearby. I found the port activity to be interesting.

Proximity to Metro: Poor, but a bus stop which will take you to the metro is very close by.

Lobby Appearance: This hotel is a bit unusual. I found it a curious place. The lobby is tucked away through a set of doors in a corner of the main foyer. It was a little chilly there. Nothing fancy. Dated. Glass separates the front desk staff from the customer.

Room Appearance: We saw four rooms on the 7th floor. The first one may not have been ready for guests and the bathroom had a repulsive smell. The other three did not have any strange odor. The rooms are fairly basic, clean, and a bit dated. The bathrooms are not attractive. All of them need renovation. The brown sinks and toilets are ugly. The tile around the tub is old. There is no shower head but instead a hose with a shower device and broken wall mounts in all of the four rooms we saw. One of the bathrooms had paint peeling off the walls and ceiling. Only one luxury suite was on this floor. The living room area was interesting. It had a restaurant style cubicle type area with a round table. A refrigerator was included, and the bathroom was a little nicer, but still not that great. The room was bigger than a normal room, but was nothing fancy. Instead of referring to it as a luxury suite, "upgraded room" might be a better term.

Useful Nearby Businesses: This is a fairly large hotel. Inside the complex are several businesses including a sports shop where you can buy a new Russian motorcycle for $600 or a $10,000 snowmobile. There is a large billiards place with a bar. It costs 50 to 100 rubles per hour to play depending on the time of day it is. There is a very nice bowling alley with hourly rates of 300 to 600 rubles per hour, a music store, and another small bar. It appears a casino is also there, but it was not open during our visit.

Hotel Restaurants: There is a small cafe on the 7th floor behind some uninviting doors. A "mini-bar" is on the ground floor. The bowling alley has a bar as well as the billiards place. I did not see any restaurants.

Other Amenities: No internet access.

Would I Stay Here? It would not be among my leading choices. If better quality accommodations were not available, then yes I would stay here as long as I had a river view. If there was no river view available, then I would decline other rooms. There are better places.

Staff Speaks English? The front desk person said she understood a little. It seemed like we were bothering her and she preferred to chat with her friend.

Comments: The outside appearance of this hotel is a little odd. Inside, the corridors are long, dark, and old. Since it is an international sea port, the complex has police stationed there, but I saw no hotel security during our visit. Every single hotel we visited had a visible security presence at the front entrance or in vital passages to the rooms, except for this one and Belly Nochi. So with such a large number of rooms per floor that are out of sight of the key lady, in combination with the low room rates for Russians and the clientele this pricing may attract, I have real concerns about the protection of valuables and personal items left in the rooms while guests are away.

This is the closest hotel to "Len Expo," the city's convention center. It is within easy walking distance. The center of the city is approximately 3 miles away. The area is residential and industrial with ships nearby that unload cargo and tugboats that help to maneuver them.

When you are staying here, you are roughing it. The foreigner price may even be a little bit high for what you get. Insist on a river view. Any other view makes the room rate a bad deal.

To the right, your neighbor at the Morskaya.  

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