Hotel Moryakov, also known as Seaman's Hotel  J   Location: Poor, but the facility is very good. http://www.seahotel.ru   Phone: 7 (812) 114-9241

Rates: Off-peak from 520 rubles to 3589 rubles ($17.33 to $117.97).

Location Rating: Poor. If you have port business to take care of, maybe this is a good place. But if you've come to enjoy the historical city center, it is a little off the beaten path.

Proximity To Metro: Poor. We took mini-bus 115 from Sennaya Ploshchad Metro Station, and returning we picked up the 22 bus to Gostiny Dvor (further away). The 22 bus took 40 minutes to get to Gostiny Dvor. (It also passes by the Mariinsky Theater.) You can also take the 66 mini-bus to Narvskaya Metro Station or the 67 mini-bus to Baltiyskaya Metro Station.

Lobby Appearance: Great! Brand new. And I like the theme: water, sea, modern. No elevator though.

Room Appearance: The new rooms are dynamite. The old rooms are old with paint peeling off the ceiling. And the old bathrooms don't look very good. Walking down the hall, you wouldn't know which rooms are old because each room has a new door. The corridors are brand new. As of this writing (February 2002), the second floor is being renovated.

Useful Nearby Businesses: The cafe at the Baltyskaya Health Center Hotel has good food at a reasonable price and you can walk there in about 5 minutes. The atmosphere is not as nice as the restaurant at the Moryakov though.

Hotel Restaurants: They have a nice, new restaurant with dark lighting, a really nice, air conditioned, very modern and attractive cafe with two internet computers available at the rate of 80 rubles per hour (very reasonable by hotel standards) and a karaoke bar that I didn't see because it was closed during our visit.

Other Amenities: There is a really nice guest relaxation area on the fourth floor with the sounds of water. Solarium, two pool tables, sauna.

Would I Stay Here? Yes. But only in a renovated room. The old rooms are... crappy.

Staff Speaks English? Yes.

Comments: What a pleasant surprise it was to discover the Moryakov. The lobby and main stairwell are new and attractive. The corridors look nice. The cafe is really nice and well designed. And I love the water flowing down the columns on the fourth floor. The sound the water creates is very relaxing and you can sit there to enjoy it.  The new rooms we saw were dynamite. Expect the prices to rise on April 1.

Hotel Moscow   J   Excellent proximity to a metro station.  http://www.hotel-moscow.ru  
Phone: 7 (812) 274-0020

Rates: Single $59 off season; double $81 off season; suite $139 off season; suite for two people $154; apartment $177 off season. They said prices are generally $30 higher in the summer. They are also renovating their standard rooms now. We saw a business-class room and it was fine. Off season cost was quoted as $100.

Location Rating: Good. It is in a quieter area, but the metro is right there and all the action in Saint Petersburg can be found at either the first or second metro stop.

Proximity to Metro: Excellent. Ploshchad Aleksandra Nevskogo Metro Station. A 2 minute walk.

Lobby Appearance: Clean.

Room Appearance: Clean... but remember we saw their more modern business-class room. The standard rooms are in the process of being updated.

Useful Nearby Businesses: Oops... I didn't take notice. There is an interesting church across the street and a famous graveyard with unusual grave stones. Old Nevsky Prospekt is right there. There must be some useful shops nearby.

Hotel Restaurants: They have a big banquet hall which they serve meals in. And there are a few bar type areas.

Other Amenities: They have a nice game area for playing pinball, pool or Russian billiards and even some gambling machines. Cost for pool is 200 rubles per hour. Downstairs they have a casino and bar/restaurant type area. Besides the gambling machines, there are a few blackjack tables. A casino in a hotel is unusual here. We saw some good quality oil paintings here, but of course they were expensive. The currency exchange rate was competitive. Plenty of souvenirs are available for sale here as well as inexpensive music cds. Internet access is also available.

Would I Stay Here? Yes.

Staff Speaks English? Yes.

Comments: The hotel looks clean. It is located just outside the heart of the city in a sleepy kind of area. But with the metro being right there, you are within easy reach of all the downtown action. The hotel is big with, I believe, 715 rooms. If you get a recently updated room, you will probably be fine. With room renovations in progress, their pricing may be adjusted in the near future.

Nauka Hotel Complex  LLL   h   Phone: 7 (812) 315-8696 Millionnaya ulitsa.

They have 3 locations. The Millionnaya ulitsa location is great. The Hermitage is a 5 minute walk down the road. But the conditions at this hotel are very poor. The stairwell was dark. They have an antique elevator that I sure wouldn't step into. And worst of all the stairwell has a very unpleasant odor. .
So close to the Hermitage, yet so crappy.é
The corridors are old and the rooms don't have bathrooms. They showed us their best rooms and I would be completely miserable to stay in one of them. You've got to be tough to stay in a place like this. You need to have high tolerance for terrible odors and visual fortitude, because it's not pretty here and most ordinary people probably couldn't stay at this facility without becoming depressed with the surroundings.

The Engelsa prospekt (812-553-8455) location isn't much better. It is way north of the action at the Udelnaya Metro Station. We saw a sign at the reception desk that said we could take a shower for 2 rubles and 62 kopeks. So that was not an encouraging discovery. But they only showed us rooms with bathrooms. The $20 room they showed us was basic and the bathroom ceiling was loaded full of black mold. Geez! The double we saw was not nice at all with a very old TV that looked like it should have been thrown into the trash years ago. But they do have one sort of nice room. Suite 201 is much more modern and is available for 1575 rubles ($52.50). The corridors are old. This place is very plain, very basic. They have a cafe but it doesn't look that nice. You would probably find this place to also be depressing. (We had a good laugh about the price for a shower. If it was 2 rubles and 60 kopeks, that would have just been strange, but 62 kopeks? One kopek coins are so worthless that even the Russians throw them on the ground. Nobody wants them.)

The Toreza prospekt (812-550-0529) location said they accepted foreigners, but they strongly discourage it. They were so insistent that these rooms were awful that I decided I didn't need to see them. Judging from the entryway, I believe her.

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