Hello Everyone,

I am trying to find an inexpensive place for my fiancee and her son to stay in Moscow. Her interview is scheduled for Monday June 2nd. So, she will need to arrive on the previous thursday to make sure that she will have enough time for her medical exam before the weekend. It is just my luck to have her stay there on Saturday and Sunday doing nothing but waiting for her interview. I found this hostel named Godzillas and I'm wondering if anyone has any opinions about it? I found it online for $60 a night for a private double room. I think it is close to the Embassy and medical centers. I had not planned on having her be in Moscow for 5 days but that is how this is turning out...

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g2...ral_Russia.html

Thanks eekee! that site is exactly what I was looking for. Now I know that I need to find a better place for her to stay in Moscow.

I don't think it would be good for a woman and her son to stay in a hostel. You should probably set them up with a small apartment somewhere. Everything in Moscow can be reached fairly quickly by the Metro, so staying outside the ring could save you some money but still keep them close enough to do their business.

By the way, did you ever send her all that money for travel and translations?

I'm kind of surprised she's letting you handle lodging for her in Moscow. I would've thought the "agency" would have a very expensive suggestion on where she was "required" to stay.

Hope all is going well and she's either started trusting you or you've layed the smack down (verbally, of course, I would never condone physically smacking someone over the phone or e-mail) and told her what's going to happen or not. It's crunch time....... Good luck in the rest of your VJ!

Yeah Slim, I gave her a verbal lashing. She is not using an Agency but she thinks that she has to pay(rather I have to pay) for everything with "Western" prices. I told her that she is Russian and she should not have to pay more for things just because she has an American fiance. I sent her less than one quarter of the money that she was requesting for translations. If she can get every document that she owns translated for that amount more power to her:) I can not afford to put her up in a $150 a night hotel for 5 nights in Moscow (I need to have some money in my account to fly her to the USA). So, I will continue searching for a place for her and her son to stay. So far the only good news is that I found a roundtrip flight from Ufa to Moscow for $150 per person. I am trying to take care of as much of this as possible for her...

have you tried this site? http://waytorussia.net/Services/Accommodation.html

Glad to hear that you found more reasonable airfare for her and her son. We all knew it was out there, I guess just convincing her was the hard part. Hell, my wife is already here and it's still hard to convince her of things sometime.

You should be able to find some pretty decent accomodations for them in Moscow. Just search the sites like eekee posted and google some others. They are out there. There are pretty nice 1BRs for under $100/night that are close to the Metro stops.

Sounds like you're making it possible!

http://www.russiangirlfriday.com/

She helped us with finding an apartment and arranging transportation.

Thank you all for your suggestions! Using this information I hope to find a place soon for her to stay. I don't know the Moscow area at all so I'm using a map to try and find a place somewhat close to the embassy. I think finding a place just outside the city would be fine too(because it should be less expensive) but due to my lack of knowledge of the surrounding area, I'm afraid that I would find a good deal and then realize that it's 2 hours from the embassy ...

Its located at metro cvetnoi boulvard.My british friends stayed there..its not posh but not scary either.
Its a bit of walk from metro,so i would catch a cab,since its hard to find first time,especislly if she is with bags...
Its located behind circus so if they have time,probably she could also take her soon to the circus:)

Don't be fooled into thinking you need to get a place right next to the embassy. Moscow metro and public transit is amazing. You can reach almost any spot in the city using the metro in under 30 minutes. We came from Korolev a suburb 40 minutes away by commuter train and then used the metro to get to the embassy and still did it way under 2 hours.

If you look at Moscow as a big circle, there's what they call the Garden Ring as kind of a smaller circle within the larger circle. Inside there is the "downtown" of Moscow with Red Square and the Kremlin, etc. The U.S. embassy is in the upper-left portion of the circle, very close to the Garden Ring. There is a Metro stop only a few blocks from the embassy so really anywhere you stay in the city, it's within walking distance of the embassy.

Inside the Ring is more expensive, so situate her inside the larger circle but outside of the Garden Ring. Make sure the apartment is within walking distance of a metro stop and she'll be able to get around the city just fine in about 30 minutes. Most of the websites that list apartments all have the nearest Metro station listed. Use that to figure out where it is in the city.

Also, if any of you are ever going to Moscow, don't worry about addresses so much as Metro stops. Sure, you need to know the building number and which street you're staying on, but the Metro station nearest your place is going to be what you'll use for directions.

nevermind

The Golden Ring is the cities around Moscow that make up good vacation places and countryside dachas, etc. The Garden Ring is a specific road inside the Moscow metropolis that encompasses "downtown" and rent is significantly higher "inside the ring" than outside. It's also higher close to the river downtown and along Tverskaya and other "uppity" or "touristy" areas. Google a map of Moscow and it'll show you the ring. Most also have the location of the embassy as well.

Does St. P have similar areas?

Most urban areas around the world have the "expensive neighborhoods." Moscow is no different. When looking for a place to rent, outside the ring is going to be cheaper. (Not always, but as a rule, it should offer some savings.)

yeah, wikipedia answered this for me and that's why i deleted my response. i think i was confused because we stayed across from a hotel called the golden ring which had a light show going across the front.

hmm... in spb the center is more expensive, around nevsky, but since there's a lot of kommunalkas there too. but generally it's just not as delineated as moscow is. because it's all islands, it's a bit different. if you stay far from the center, it'll be cheaper, usually--but there are also luxury estates in the areas which are really far from the center, so it's more varied.

Slim,
I found a room 5 minutes walk from Belarusskaja Metro for $80 a night. Is this a good deal? Of course, I would like to find a place that is less expensive (maybe $50 a night) but I need to be realistic considering the time that I have left to get a place for her to stay. It is not easy to find information about Moscow accomodations that are reasonable. I have sent emails to rusgirlfriday and Pasha and have visited waytorussia.net and various other sites. I'm sure that there are many places to stay but they are not advertised on the net. If she were in the U.S. I would just book a room at the local Motel 6 for $37.99 a night Thank you for your help!

IMO, you'll be hard pressed to find anything less than $80/night that would be acceptable (to me) in Moscow. Of course, each person has his/her own standards. Is $80/night reasonable for the "room" that you've found? I don't have nearly enough information to offer an opinion on that question. I hope that you've at least seen some photos of what the place "supposedly" looks like?

JMO.......

Jump on that!

$80 is a good deal (non-Muscovite prices) for a small apartment or hotel room. I hope that's what you meant by "room." Either way, Belarusskaja is within walking distance (for a Russian, not for my fat @$$!) to the embassy, the zoo, and even to the Kremlin/Red Square. (Once again, for a Russian it's within walking distance. It took me about 35 minutes to walk all the way down there.) However, jumping on that Metro will take them anywhere real quick.

When I stayed in Moscow, that's the area I stayed in. Pretty nice, actually. If I were you, I'd book it if it was a small apart or hotel room. If it's just a room in someone's house, I'd keep looking. You can find rooms in someone's house for like $30/night. Since she's travelling with her son, it's probably better if they have their own accomodations.

Edited: Almost forgot, if she's taking the train, Bellarusskaja vokzal (the big train station, not the metro, the actual train) is in the same complex as Bellarusskaja metro stop. She can take the train all the way there from her city and then catch the mini-bus or a cheap taxi to the hotel with her bags. Shouldn't be more than a couple bucks. This trip is getting cheaper and cheaper!

Today I got an email about the $80 apartment. In fact the $80 a night is only for a room in the apartment. The owner informed me that the whole apartment would be $144 per night. I am disappointed because I thought I had finally found a place for her to stay that isn't outrageous The search continues...

would it really be a problem to stay in a room in an apartment?

I think it would be fine for her and her son to stay in a room in an apartment. However, from what I have read here it sounds like $80 is too much to pay for a room rental.

I should go back to Moscow and lease a place for a year, furnish it, and sublease it too all the westerners needing a place to house their loved ones during the interview process. Profit can be had! What do you think Slim, joint venture? Leasing a place a for a year would probably only run about $500 - $800 a month. At $100 a day you could recoup that in a week!

Two years ago this month I spent $70 per night for this place, which is a block from the Belaruskaya metro station:
http://arendakvart.narod.ru/photobkondratevskaya23.html

As you can see the price is closer to $110 per night, now. As a previous poster wrote, you are not going to find a decent place she can stay alone in within the garden ring for $50 per night, not going to happen even if you were a local.

You should also be aware that this whole process doesn't get less expensive once she arrives. Please know that if you're nickel and diming over a few hundred dollars now, you may really struggle when she is here.

Satellite, in all seriousness, after reading thousands upon thousands of posts here on VJ, I've had this thought more than a few times. Seeing the amount of cash men are willing to dole out when it comes to "costs" associated with the VJ process, I've often thought I could make a pretty nice living simply assisting VJ'ers (and non-VJ K-1 guys) out. I even took it so far as helping with adoptions too after my mother had me and my wife help her translate a few Russian and Ukrainian websites dealing with adoptions. It seems to be a similar process. One in which thousands of dollars are paid in associated "costs" necessary to complete the process.

If you're really interested in doing this, I would love to be the "boots on the ground" in Moscow. I thought about running the business strictly from a home office here in the States, but there's a lot of money to be made from meeting "in person" at the destination. I figure buying/leasing a few units would be a couple grand and I could rent them out at a discounted rate of only $100/night which would pretty much guarantee 100% rentals. I would pay my driver $20 (of the $50 fee charged to the customer) to pick them up at the airport and bring them to the apartment. For a small fee, I would personally show them around the city..... anyway, giving away trade secrets here. Even just spending downtime translating unnecessary documents for $10/page is probably a great way to save for retirement.

Start-up money is the problem now. See you in about three years? Oh, and in the mean time we've gotta figure out how much it's going to cost for "protection."



That is a fact. If you have to budget to get the trip done, you're going to have to rob Peter to pay Paul after her arrival. That's a huge strain on the relationship as well. It's easy to be happy when you're both "on vacation" but when you're in the every day grind, and there's no extra money for anything, it gets tough. Ensure she knows where you're coming from.

Hi,

I sent an email to this person but she never answered back. Do you know if she is
still in business?

Thank you ,
Javier

There's been a few people lately who have emailed her and gotten no response. Last I heard, she was away for a while and unable to get back to people in time. That, and she's been extremely busy. As far as I know she's still in business.

Last August, Masha and I stayed at the Sverchkov 8. It cost $80/night for a clean soviet style double room, breakfast (nothing fancy) included. The closest metro station is Kitay Gorod, half way between the hotel and Kremlin (about a 15 minute walk). If Kremlin is your center of coordinates, the Sverchkov is somewhat symetrically opposite to the Arbat district, where the US embassy I believe is located. Let your fiancee call (625-4978) and find out if this suits you. On line: http://www.all-hotels.ru/h116545/hotel/index.en.html and search for Sverchkov 8. Masha's interview probably will be in July, so we will try again with the FridayGirl, but if this person is not avaliable right now, here you have another possibilty. Best to you, buddy Javier

Thank you for your suggestions. I emailed rusgirlfriday too and after 5 days she emailed me back. She is super busy. Must be alot of people trying to get rooms for their visa interviews.

I apologize for telling you wrong . It was a mental lapsus. We stayed at the Sverchkov but it was actually $150/night. I got confused with a hotel in some small place we went to. I am really sorry for misleading you. Best luck with rusgirlfriday. I think this is the best choice. I hope she answers back to me.

Good Luck