KievApartment

. I went to Kiev by train in the morning. I stayed at a different apartment hotel in Kiev. (My normal hotel was full). The apartment interface was very strange. If I was not a self sufficient traveller with some knowledge of Russian and a good familiarity with downtown Kiev, this would have been a very bad experience. First, the place shown on the map in the website is not where the hotel is located. If I would have gone to that address, it would have been useless. I called first because I did not remember seeing any hotel in the area on the map on previous trips. After the second call to the number provided, a lady finally answers. Her English is okay. She texts me an address where I am to go to pick up the key. She also then texts me the street address for the apartment and the entry codes for the doors. I tell the cab driver and he takes me the key address and drops me off. There is a sign in the 2nd floor window for the hotel company. I drag my luggage inside and up the first floor stairs, but there is no "concierge" there. I drag my luggage back outside and go into the courtyard of the building. No luck there either. I finally call the lady I had talked with before and she explains to me the concierge is in the unmarked, little booth I walked past on the first floor. (They might have thought that a person with the luggage may have been there for the hotel). Anyway, I tell the lady in the booth (in Russian) that I am there for the room. She ends up calling the lady I was conversing with on the phone. She hands me the key. Hmmm… I ask here where the apartment is. She replies it is on Лютерарсьля street (#68). I ask – where is this? There is a map on the wall and she finally finds the street and points to it on the map. I was expected to haul my luggage about half a mile and find this apartment on my own. Two good things – I have a reasonable understanding of Russian and good knowledge of this area of Kiev. If I did not have these two things, it would have been very difficult to find the apartment. Even when I arrived at the adress, the apartment is in the inner courtyard and the apartment address is hidden. It took me another call to the hotel company to locate the entry to the apartment in the courtyard. To entry codes worked, but took many attempts before they would actually open the two doors. The apartment was sparse and not nearly as nice as would have been indicated by the advertisement. Maybe their "deluxe" apartments are better. Things were old and worn. The bathroom was the worst. I should note, though, that most of the lower cost Kiev apartment hotels are not overly well furnished. The room was cold – there were two portable space heaters I found in the closet and they managed to warm the apartment up over several hours. This apartment had two great things – high speed internet and its location is very close to the main street in Kiev. Overall, I would not recommend this hotel to people with no Russian skills. It is okay if you get past the hotel interface.