“ Has old world charm, including bad hospitality ”

Reviewed Feb 8, 2011

by lionelrishi (16 reviews) London , United Kingdom

The hostel is very conveniently located if you want to base yourself in the historic centre, as nearly every site, museum, theatre is within 20 mins
walking distance.

It's also situated in a very popular street for dining and drinking, with a lot of pubs, brs and restaurants located on or just off the street in either direction - the quality and price varies, but if you don't plop yourself into the nearest pub or pizza plcae, you'll be laughing - for Vodka, check out the Lenin Bar - to foggy to remember the locaion - that's what google maps are for!

Walking into the building would probably put off most weekend holiday makers, as it's housed in what for all intents and purposes is a derelict (and what should be condemed) building. This will probably excite those looking for some of Russia past, and when you get to the second floor and enter through the big red door you will not be disappointed.

The reception area is very small and has a bare bones 50's soviet feel, with a dour recptionist to boot, who will only peer over their monitor briefly, perhaps grunt in acknowledgement then go back to watching some American sitcom over the free wifi.

Good thing is that they all speak English very well - most of team current or recent students who either studied in England or learnt it to degree level.

The rooms are quite clean, with only a thin layer of dust found under the beds, very basic furniture - but most of the rooms are brightly decorated and the shwer rooms and WCs are clean - with hot water available through out the day.

Coffee and Tea making facilities are available i the common room and there is a fridge where you can purchase beer, soft drinks and bottled water from (price for a 500ml beer can was 50Rbs and 500ml water was 30 Rbs).

The main issue that I had with this place is that the common room tended to be a hangout for the receptionist, her friends and their friends - and although you were free to hangout there too, there usually wasn't much more room, the PCs were always being used for streaming dance music (blasted out at over 100 Dbls). As these locals were also eating up the internet connection bandwidth when it was up (a minor miracle if it was up for more than 1 hour durning my time there) forget trying to use the FREE Wifi on offer.

These locals also tended to party all night, but didn't seem to want to share in the joviality with anyone else :(

Location Great, Rooms and Facilities Clean with some limited services available at a cost (Laundry is extortianate at 500 Rbs per a load washed and dried)

I'd probably only stay here again if there were no other hostels available for the price

This review is the subjective opinion of a TravelPod member and not of TravelPod.com.