Moscow Hotels: Short Supply, High Demand, Outrageous Prices

Today I moved out of the hotel I stayed at the first two weeks while here in Moscow. Above is an evening snapshot from the window of my first room, looking towards the East from the city over Leninsky Prospect. The area is famous for the Yuri Gagarov monument, dedicated to his flight into space. Thus the name of that hotel is Sputnik. Inside the hotel, which I mentioned previously, is the Korean-managed hotel service.

Now I am closer to downtown in a Korean-managed 'minbak'--it is basically a communal living arrangement where rooms and facilities are shared. In this way, the project I am on is minimizing expenses. Having experienced this type of arrangement several times before in South Korea, it is not much of an adjustment for me. But the expectation for most foreigners if here on a project would be their own hotel room.

Even with the Korean-managed hotel service inside Sputnik, prices bottom out above $200 for very modest rooms and amenities. An average hotel will go for $400-600, while 5-star hotels run closer to $1,000 or more. As a result, one can imagine the expense of having a resource here for 6 weeks just in hotel fees.

I haven't done much reading on this phenomenon, but just driving and walking around the city it seems that there just aren't many hotels (every sign is in Russian, so I can't say they would be easy to spot anyway). The ones that do exist seem to be more towards the high-end side.

With some extra time next weekend, I am off to Finland to visit a friend who was once an exchange student at my high school. By over-night train Helsinki is around 12 hours away from Moscow. I am looking forward to visiting another country that I very recently wondered when I would ever get to visit...

Below is a shot of Moscow State University, not far from Sputnik and easily spotted from the 16th floor Indian restaurant...

Comments

[Dan]

We sent an attorney there a few weeks ago and the best we could find was a Courtyard by Marriott for around $800 a night. The Marriott itself was around $1100 per night. We asked our client about cheaper rooms and he insisted anything less was too sketchy in terms of crime. Moscow hotel prices have to be the worst in the world!

[Shawn in Tokyo]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for stopping in...

Yeah, actually this is the peak tourist season and thus the $400-600 I mention above is probably not accurate for this time of the year. Your experience helps confirm this...