I stayed here for one night. Former soviet giant hotel with hunreds of rooms. The staff is average. The room was clean. Bed - comfortable. Furniture - modern. The restaurant looked nice. Breakfast was really good. Not so big asortment. But food quality was very good. Wi-Fi cards wasn't available. Close to the metro station "Vladikino". 30 minutes by metro to the center of Moscow. So, it was normal, average hotel. Nothing bad, and nothing very good.
The staff have some English. The room was basic but clean. The restaurant was good and did a nice buffet breakfast. Evening menu was good and the food above average. There is an ATM in the lobby but it didn't work with any of my uk cards. The nearest ATM that did work was over 3km away and I had to walk through a bad neighborhood to get there - like many places in russia the restaurant only accepts cash.
The only reason why I stayed at this hotel was because my Japanese friend said that her professor recommended it. Before the stay I had my reservations about the hotel, since it was a headache just to get a reservation on the phone without them hanging up on me. Yeah the staff doesn't really speak English that well. In fact you will be very lucky if they do have someone that speaks English.
When we got to the hotel it was no better. There was absolutely no service at all. No bellboys, no concierge, no thing except for two ladies standing behind the desk. Oh yeah, there was one scantily-clad lady sitting in a worndown sofa in the very bleak lobby. And no they still didn't speak English, so that probably complicated things.
After some confusion about the reservations we had made, my friend and I was finally able to get into our room after 30 minutes of waiting and no other guests. Since it was early in the morning, we also wanted some breakfast.
However there are no nearby street vendors, cafés or shops. So we had to settle for the hotel breakfast which was very expensive (we were charged around 1000 rubles) and consisting only of day-old bread along with uninviting ham and jam.
The rooms are very small and we found vomit under the bed. The bed itself was okay.
Be sure to bring your passport with you at any time. One night me and my gf got home at around 10 or 11 PM and a stern looking guy demanded to see our passports. We showed it to him in the lobby and proceeded up to our room. However we talked abit in the corridor and then suddenly that stern looking guy came and hushed us into our room. Supposedly we were monitored by the surveillance system...
The hotel lies around 10-15 minutes of walk to the nearest metro station. From the metro station it takes 20-30 minutes to get to the Kremlin (center of the city). The area in which the hotel is located is really bleak and is just next to the highway. Around the area there are no shopping opportunities and it is basically residential area.
The hotel doesn't seem to have been renovated since the Cold War and it certainly does bring back reminscence back from that age. The only other guests at the hotel seemed to be middle-aged russian/kazakstahni officials.
I would advise anyone to stay away from this hotel.
The only good thing about this hotel is recently remodeled rooms but my sheet and pillow case did not get changed out at any time during my 19 days stay! This hotel advertises as 3 stars, but in reality, it's only a 2 stars (but in my opinion it only deserves 1 star). The hotel consists of several hundred rooms, but the breakfast area only has less than 20 tables and the selection of food variety is a joke!. On one of the Saturday morning, they do not have any milk/creme for coffee (the only coffee available for the paid "breakfast-included" deal is instant coffee packages). Except the breakfast I had on the last day I was there, all the bread they have served for my other 18 days stay is stale old bread! There are also a few days the hotel did not have any liquid soap for bath! There is no hair dryer in the room, and if you ask for one, the charge is 25 ruble per use (while almost any hotel nowadays will let you use one for free!). Most of the front desk staff are rude, they make you feel like you are bothering them when you try to ask a question. If you are not white European, don't stay in this hotel! The front desk staff treats just about all the quests as second class citizens, and if you are not white, you don't even get treatment amounts to that! On one occasion, we need to use their so call business center (only has 2 computer terminals) at 8:30 pm (which the center closing hour is 9:00 pm), and we were told the center is closed because there is no body using it (which means we are not people!) and we'll have to wait till tomorrow morning.
This is absolutely the worst hotel I ever been in. When you walk in the hotel, you never get the welcome feeling but unfriendliness. Please pick another hotel for your visit in Moscow!
