Comment #1 from a former guest at the President Hotel:

We stayed at the President Hotel. We felt like we WERE in the Twilight Zone -- stuck in the middle of a Bewitched rerun. If you need video -- we found the whole experience SO BIZARRE that we took a little video of our room -- complete with jeg-lagged commentary.  It was a very unusual experience.  And we stayed there at the suggestion of our adoption agency (on trip 1) -- we stayed elsewhere on trip 2. 
 

Comment #2 from same person:

Ed,
No problem -- feel free to post my comments (without my name, of course).  Our agency strongly "encourages" its families to stay at the President. I have to wonder who's getting a kick-back.  I know there's parking, which is a concern at other hotels, but at what cost? If memory serves, we paid about $188 for a room w/ 2 double beds. They brought an ancient roll away for my 16 year old son.  He chose to sleep on the floor. Poor kid.
 
Stale cigarette smoke permeated our floor. (We're not smokers, so this, and much of Moscow, was tough.)  Puce green bed spreads -- I'm telling you, it was a snapshot of the past.  CREEPY.  And to read so many families' posts praising it...?!?
 
It WAS clean.  BUT, the lighting in the bathroom was HORRID.  And just because it had a bidet doesn't mean it's a 4 star hotel. I'm sorry, but really.
 
We also had a very nice view of the river -- from the 13th floor.  (I'm not superstitious). 
 
Another interesting aside -- they charged us 20 rubles each to register our passports.  not a lot of money, but the principle of it really annoyed me.  None of the other hotels we stayed at (in the region or Moscow) did this.

 

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