An Interesting Moscow Experience
Better late than never I suppose, but I did want to comment on my 7 day trip to Moscow in the fall. In summary it is a story of an experienced monger who is a newbie to Russia and some thoughts/tips for others who might be in a similar situation.
I'll say that Russia was not what I expected, and in many ways threw me for more of a loop than I had expected.
It started with a flight from Madrid via Italy to Moscow on Al Italia. In my 58 countries and 100's of thousands of sky miles experience, flying Al Italia was the greatest mistake of my traveling history. Lets simply say that I was sans baggage and clothing for 5 days on the way to Moscow and on the way back both times the airline misplaced my luggage in Milan. No upgrades, no appologies, nothing. I will never fly that airline as long as I live, just my 2 cents, but beware.
Finding clothes and suits in Moscow of good quality and in my size was far harder than expected, and far costlier than I had imagined. The selection at the malls were lackluster and the stores at the Arbat are about the same in cost as my hometown 5th ave in NYC.
I was also surprised at the sheer cost of my trip (possibly too many to SE asia and south America). I stayed in a suite at the Ukrainskya Hotel (one of Stalin's towers) for $225 USD / night. No problems with the girls and had a nice stay overall. You will not get a room for less than $150 USD/night I found the suites to be worth the extra dough. I went to a few other hotels to check out the prices/scene and found most others to be more expensive. So, I suppose the first thing of note was that Moscow was going to be more expensive than many of my other most recent destinations Kiev and other cities in the Ukraine were 1/3 the cost and just as nice or nicer and in SE Asia or South America you could stay at a similar quality hotel for 1/5 the cost. Due to the fact that it was a last minute trip for business you should also be aware that an rushed visa application and processing will run you an additional $150. Make sure to give your visa to your hotel to process it upon your arrival (also an additional fee) as a friend of mine who failed to do this was wacked with a $200 fine upon leaving Moscow.
My style of mongering is spending half of my time searching for the non-pros and the other half at the regular wattering holes. I had set up a few meetings with women I met online and who could speak English and had read the boards here in order to plan my attack.
The loss of my clothes and luggage put a serious hamper on my trip and I wound up meeting only 2 of the 6 women I had met online. Not bad considering that I had only started writing to them 1 week before when I knew I was going to be in Moscow. I have to say that the two that I met were regular total non-pros in their mid 20's who had some good conversations and were exactly as their pictures showed on the Internet. I was however slighltly dissapointed either in my seduction skills or their lack of availability to close the deal with either of them during my trip. For some reason, I was expecting something more amourous to occur. I do however feel that had I spent more time with them and in the com***ication beforehand things would have been much different.
I went to the standard places some apartments etc and the women were exactly as advertised, hot as hell and total pros. The highlight of the trip had to be the bar / pickup place owned by two Canadians called Doug and Marty's Boar House. I had a great time at this place and there were loads of prime women and some great expat conversation. The weekends were the best with the tallent going down seriously on Sunday and Monday. Also had some luck at the Real McCoy right near the US Embasy. However the Boar house was great and highly reccomended.
In summary, the women of Russia are possibly the hottest in the world. I found myself more attracted to them than any other mongering destination (and I have been to Cuba, DR, CR, Columbia, Brazil, Argentina, Ukraine, Czech Rep, Nic, Cambidia, Vietnam, Laos, Manila and Indonesia) and with the exception of Urkraine and Brazil one would be hard pressed to find more beautiful women. The prices are not bad and not great. $50 for an hour or so and $150 for the entire night is what my experience was. I would have to say that I would imagine my expeience to be far better if I had been able to speak Russian. Being able to speak Spanish might bias me but I found the Russian pros to be slightly colder than their SE Asian or Latin counterparts. Would I return? Yes, but I would spend more time, try and learn some Russian and work on the non-pro angle. I actually found the Ukraine to be more to my liking with friendlier women, cheaper and better hotels and no visa hassle. Thus my next trip will most likely be to the south.
Hope my experience helps some other Russian newbies out. To all of you who travel to Moscow on a regular basis and can speak the language, you guys are in heaven, wish I was there.
Ender
Moscow accomodation for 15-20 USD/Day
Well...i never get to reach moscow...till i get to perfect my karma :)
so its my daily routine to search for info's to keep me uptodate till i land in moscow.
yeah...now a days the hot topic is on cost of accomodation...so during my googling upto 20th page i found some interesting links and thanks to bigbroAJ's links in distinction..i got some confirmation...
Check this out...
[url]http://eng.moscowout.ru/accommodation/hotels/906/[/url]
[url]http://eng.moscowout.ru/accommodation/hotels/?page=2[/url]
[url]http://www.hotels-moscow.ru/metro.html[/url]
The first link take's you to the hotel were prices are in 500 RBL range but it also says that its mainly for institute stuff and writers ...and all the facilities they mention are confusing ..like wise may be if you search from second link you will get 100's of links of hotels in and around metro area that are in 15-20 USD range..
to get it right if you check the third link of metro map...they are indeed in and around moscow..yet the prices are soo low..compared to what we are used to.
May be the rooms are for some other purpose or whatever....but im sure its russia and like any country they will compromise with the rooms if they are vacant.
Or may be im ill-informed about these things...so could any experienced mongers please shed more info on these type of accomodations.
Thanks,
Loser.
Little known facts about Moscow, #3,453
Looks like reasonably priced hotel accomodations have suddenly become a hot topic.
Something most people don't know is that the Moldovan Embassy in Moscow operates a small private hotel in the center of town. The info can be found here:
[url]http://eng.moscowout.ru/accommodation/hotels/891/[/url]
(don't look at the map link, because the location indicated on the map is completely off).
I have stayed there once before, so I speak from experience. It has an excellent location, right at the intersection of Rozhdyestvenka and Kuznyetski Most. The metro station is just across the street, Red Square is a 10 minute walk. The building itself is located a good ways back from the street in a courtyard, so it's always very quiet.
It's a Russian style hotel, so no A/C in the summer, but it is actually quite nice. The "deluxe" rooms go for $85 a night (better check for current rates). They have a separate bedroom in addition to a kind of sitting room, with TV & phone, fully furnished.
Nice bathroom, with toilet paper! lol Tub and shower with hot water... all the time!
The downside is, they don't speak English, and it's cash only, but then, at $85 a night, you won't need much.
Can't testify as to whether they are "chica friendly". I'm sure the okhrana at the kiosk out front where you enter from the alleyway will not challenge you if you want to bring a dyev back you your room. The dyezhoornaya at the front desk might say something, but mainly she will probably just want you to pay for the extra person, and if you come back after midnight, she probably won't even be on duty.
So, for what you will pay for 1 night at the Hyatt Ararat, which is just around the corner, you could stay an entire week at the Moldova hotel. Kinda makes you think...
Hotel thoughts and clarification on The Boar house
[QUOTE=etaoin2003]Ender, thanks for a great report. A point of clarification: $50 for girls at the Boar House?
Sounds like a great time.[/QUOTE]
No and yes. Most girls at the Boar House wanted to go long time although I am sure that they would go for an hour or so for $50 or so. But my experience was a constant quote of between $150-$200 for the entire night. I was told by some of the expats that they would go down to $125 for all night especially if you were a return visitor.
Nice thing for me was that at the Boar House about 60% of the girls spoke some English which for some reason on this trip meant something to me.
The Boar House was just plain fun with great drinks and good expat company and on Friday and Saturday there were easily 60+ available women all looking for a date that evening. It was all Inividual girls looking for dates with no cover charge, no surcharge and no extra fees to the bar. It was the closest thing to La Dolce Vita in Cartagena that I have seen anywhere in the world!
As for the Hotel issue, $80 for an unknown place with questionable security and location is not something I was loking to experiment with, but you are all correct that $200+ per night is just plain silly in a city where you can get some of the hottest tang for $30 short time. I was able to check out some of the apartments from the following services:
[url]http://www.moscow-comfort.com/[/url]
[url]http://www.apartmentsmoscow.com/[/url]
I really liked the service and support of the 2nd company whom I spoke to on the phone while I was in Moscow. English speaking and totally professional, I would do business with them in a heartbeat. $80 for an apartment with a kitchen sounds like a good thing for me.
ENDER