Street Address: Smolenskaya Street, 8 - Moscow, Russia

Location: Very Good

Nearest Metro:

Staff Speaks English? Yes.

Would I Stay Here? Yes.

* Renovated Rooms Are Nice. Close To Arbat Street. Good Value *

I'm a little bit excited about the Belgrad because this was the first hotel I stayed at in Moscow and they seem to be doing a pretty good job of renovating this substantial hotel. The hotel has 600 rooms altogether, but only 235 are available right now. I was quite surprised to see their brand new lobby and really nice brand new Otis elevators. They still have old rooms at cheap prices. These are basic, plain, but clean, no-frills rooms. More exciting to me are their brand new, air conditioned floors. These new rooms are brand new and really nice with beautiful new bathrooms. The renovated rooms are on the top floors (19 story building) and the rooms have interesting city views, although the glass was filthy during my March 21, 2004 visit. The best views feature the nearby Gothic Stalin building. I liked the king-sized luxury suite the most.

Security is thorough. Security guys will check you out before you get on an elevator. Then you need a card key to get access to the newer floors.

There is a nice restaurant on the third floor and a small bar/hang-out area is in the lobby, but the atmosphere is the opposite of cozy. Room rates are $65 to $250. Get a renovated room and you won't be disappointed.

A veteran traveller to Moscow wrote this after I had commented that I thought it was a good value:

"Glad to hear it on the Belgrad. When I stayed there 10 years ago, in a single, my toilet belched sewage, and I found myself eating dinner next to swarthy guys with shoulder holsters, and the waitress advising me (I spoke Russian, so the wait staff liked me) that maybe it would be good if I took off before the local killers and gangsters got too drunk. Apparently, things have improved dramatically :) "

The veteran traveller then stayed at the Belgrad in September 2004 and here is what he had to say this time:

The renovated rooms are very nice *to look at*, but  in the end the Belgrad is still a Soviet style hotel. Security, with a double-key system that requires a room key just to get on the renovated floors, is nice, but the lobby is still basically a bunch of dodgy-looking folks clustered around here and there. The desk staff are moderately polite, but not particularly helpful. There is no room service, and even asking for spare towels is an adventure. (We asked three times and never got them. Replenishing the toilet paper took two calls and an hour.)

My favorite moment was going to the bar to ask for some ice. "None," I was told. "It's a *bar*," I said (in Russian). The bartender shrugged, the front desk shrugged, and so I went to the restaurant, tipped a nice lady some rubles, and got a bag of ice. Welcome back to the USSR, comrades.

Amenities, such as hair dryers, mini-bars, and CNN do not exist. Other "amenities" have their own downside. For example, local calls are free -- but you cannot call other parts of Russia (or so I was told.) The worst feature in the room was water temperature in the shower: it cycled from cold to scalding, pretty much no matter where you had it set. So to take a shower, you have to do the "Belgrad Two-Step:" step in when it's warm, step out when it's too hot or too cold. It's like doing the Hokey-Pokey in the shower. A real pain. We were there during a warm streak in September; the air conditioning didn't work. When I complained about it, they switched it over to a heating unit. Oy.

The breakfast buffet is only 8 bucks, but there's a reason: it's basically a tiny assortment of cold cuts, hard boiled eggs, and cereal. An especially nice touch are the arty pictures of naked women in the restaurant, including the one on all fours right over the buffet. If you're bringing your kids, cover their eyes.

Another nice Soviet touch: No rooms, even when there are rooms. A Russian friend came to visit, and we called from a local restaurant to arrange an unrenovated room for him (a bargain at 65 bucks). "None!" we were told. We walked around the corner to the hotel, walked up to the front desk, I told the young lady my colleague needed a room. "Plenty! What would he like?" Sheesh.

In sum, if you're an adult willing to do without any amenities, want a nice, clean, very comfortable renovated room right on the Arbat with commanding 19th floor views of Moscow, the Belgrad can be a pretty good deal. But if you don't speak Russian, and need a bit of service or a touch of luxury -- like, say, a bucket of ice --now and then, forget it.

PS: I want to point out that for people roughing it, the Belgrad's unrenovated rooms are the best deal in Moscow. They're comfortable enough, especially if all you want to do is sleep there.
 

Hotel Complex Berlin     K    +7 (095) 319-8121        www.berlin.ru

Street Address: Malaya Youzhniskaya Ulitsa, 1/2 - Moscow, Russia

Location: Fair

Nearest Metro: Kakhovskaya

Staff Speaks English? A little.

Would I Stay Here? Yes.

Inexpensive rooms, clean, fairly modern. It's a budget hotel. Not bad. Nothing interesting to see in the neighborhood. Ten minutes from a metro station. Rooms are priced between 1210 to 2550 rubles.

As I walked up to the Berlin, I had the impression this was a giant hotel, because their sign is on top of a very tall building. But the hotel is actually around to the side and it only has 81 rooms.

Two years ago it was reconstructed. A new restaurants should open by May 2004. Their cafe opened about a year ago (March 2003?) and the cafe is interesting because hundreds of compact discs were used in the decorating.

The Fourth and fifth floors are considered the best. The rooms are not air conditioned. The fourth floor hallway needs to have the carpet stretched or replaced. I saw room 513. It was nice, and had a 13" tv. And I saw 419, which was considered a standard room. There was nothing bad about it.

Breakfast is included. "They don't charge extra for making a reservation," but if I understood correctly, they also don't guarantee reservations. They also will not provide the visa invitation, but they will register you.

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