Homestays are centrally located and represent the best value
in Russia. You receive your own room (some can cater for up to four people
although most are suitable for two) which is MUCH cleaner than any other comparative
budget accommodation and you are not in a dorm with people you don’t know.
In addition, you receive breakfast and can organise (and pay
directly) for lunch and/or dinner, a huge saving when
compared with having to buy your meals in restaurants. Being central suburbs
there are 'local shops' and markets around the apartment complexes. Here you can
stock up on snacks etc on your journey to the centre and that bottle of
Georgian red on the return home, thus saving a lot of money when compared to the
costs in the centre of the cities, or near major hotels.
Probably the most important aspect of homestay is the fact that you experience
everyday contemporary Russian life. Isn’t that one of the main reasons why we
all travel?
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| Breakfast is included and you can organise other meals direct with hosts | Apartments have some uniformity, but then some have different layouts. | |
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| One example of a homestay bedroom | One example of a not so typical homestay host. Different house to picture on left, but same layout |
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Main course |
Size and style of homestays vary across the country. They can be more grand and larger in size within the cities of Moscow and St Petersburg. We can cater for families using some of the larger homestays. In addition, we have a catchment of vegetarian hosts.
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| A close in St Petersburg suburb. Typical design from the post WW2 Soviet era. Don't forget St Petersburg was devastated during the WW2 siege and area surrounding the older centre were heavily destroyed. | Some homestays in St Petersburg can be in the older areas | An
inner Moscow suburb with Stalin period apartment design. Click here to read some notes from Brent who stayed in this building. |
In Moscow and St Petersburg we have a number of homestays of the more 'grand' nature that we can request. Naturally availability cannot be guaranteed until after we have received the deposit and made the request. Click here to view some Moscow examples..
Some comments from a recent traveller..
Hi Helen
Arrived back from my trip on the weekend – spent a few days in Germany with Amanda which was rather special as she is going to stay for another year at least.
We had the very best trip to Russia – thanks so much for the organizing.
Your office were very good – though we did wonder when we arrived at Moscow and had not seen our driver for an hour or so – good practice for me as I had to use my Russian language skills – and he had been in a traffic jam so eventually arrived. We had an excellent location just about 3 metro stops from the centre of Moscow. It was rather fun as our homestay host was in hospital readying for an operation so her neighbour let us in and helped us – and our homestay host or I should say hostess (Olga) rang us from the hospital and told us that her son Nik would come in and stay nights and arrange our breakfast – which he did. He turned out to be a journalist (not good with English) – a little shy of us – but very nice – even ended up giving us his magazine where he was an editor – so pretty much we had the use of the apartment and could come and go. Olga rang us quite a few times and was very lovely – we were sorry we did not meet her.
Our guide was excellent too, as was the one in St Petersburg.
I could not believe for a day or two that I was really in Russia and loved Moscow – we walked and rode the metro’s so much and really felt we were part of the scene, rather than tourists. Had a trip to Sergiyev Posad, about 40kms out which was great.
The train to St Petersburg was excellent – I could not believe how good it was and we were met promptly there by an interesting lady and driven to our homestay – which again was wonderfully located – we could walk each day into the city centre and our homestay hostess was lovely – also had keys here and could come and go at will. I enjoyed St Petersburg immensely too, especially the Hermitage. Oh, wish some of these places were in Australia.
By the way the Moscow office also rang us here to check if things were okay and offered any further help.
Took a bus to Tallinn and then flew to Berlin for a couple of days and then back to Heilbronn with Amanda.
We will keep in touch with the ladies in Russia – just want to say a huge thanks – it was the trip of a lifetime.
Amanda still had an English map of Moscow city which she said you gave her a couple of years ago – if you do still have one that you can spare, would you mind sending me one please.
Kind regards
June
