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ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
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Randhouse ? www.randhouse.ru
Note by Lena:
I’ve been there but they’ve refused to show the rooms and only let me in and said they couldn’t do that. No matter what I said I couldn’t persuade them. They didn’t even give me their website address! What freaks!
BUT: I’ve been to this place and I know it’s nice and clean inside and that the people I worked with (guide customers) really enjoyed it. It’s more like a B&B. There isn’t anybody sitting there day and night, but a lady that comes and cleans for a couple of hours. Guests have their own keys.
Submitted by a
reader on February 14, 2005 who stayed here three times since 2002...
Location is excellent; less than a block away from Sennaya square and Sadovaya
or Sennaya Ploshad metro
stations.
It's a small, 7-room bed and breakfast type establishment. They are trying to
keep a low profile,
so it's not marked in any way. Once you get inside, it's very clean, modern, and
staff are friendly.
Everything is almost brand-new, european-standard. The shared facilities are
spotless, and the breakfast is
excellent. However, the place has one big negative - you need to go through an
increasingly nasty stairwell
to get there (see below).
I've stayed at Randhouse several times and watched the stairwell situation
deteriorate. Back in 2002 the door
to the stairwell was locked with a code lock, and the stairwell was pretty nice
and clean -- about as good a
communal stairwell as I've ever seen in St. Petersburg. Then in 2003 or so some
businesses moved
in, and the door is now wide open most of the day. Given that it faces a busy
street consequences quickly
followed - now the walls are covered with graffiti and it's often used as a
bathroom and stinks. Now on your
way upstairs you have to step over lakes and rivers of urine. I grew up in
St. Petersburg and have a high
tolerance for crappy communal stairwells, but this was pushing even my limits
and I'll avoid staying there
until the situation is improved.
- Is this hotel suitable for other travelers? Yes, if you can make it past the
smelly, graffiti-ridden stairwell.
Note: Please do not publish my e-mail address
with this review. I'd like it to be anonymous.
Editor's Note: Hmm... very interesting. This is some good dirt. Thank you very much for that insightful contribution. Has anyone else stayed there? Folks, if a native Saint Petersburger says the communal stairwell is that bad, then oh my... it's got to be really, really bad. I hope they will be successful in solving that problem. As for me, I would never tolerate having to breathe a putrid urine stench to enter a hotel/bed & breakfast/hostel. It is unacceptable, revolting, and disgusting. Can you imagine huffing and puffing as you climb the stairs and breathing that? Yuck!
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