Bristol'-Zhiguli — Hotel in Samara

The hotel is in a central zone, on a main street (Khuibisheva), perfect, near a pedestrian street (Leningradskaja), perfect. The hotel has been undergoing extensive renovations, all rooms and common spaces are brand new. ||The fact that works in the lobby and on the stairs from ground floor to upper floor were running from morning to late evening, so that that the stairs were not available…. With the logical consequence on the tiny (only one) elevator, specially at breakfast time….well, this is puzzling indicator of organization. However, miracle, the last day all the work was over. ||Rooms. Kind suggestions to the architect:||1 - on the (large and comfortable) writing desk you should put a light…. otherwise how can you read and write comfortably?||2 - in the bathroom the (large) shower box should contain a shower bulb of the right size, not the children size thing presently provided !!!||Suggestions for improvement to the hotel management:||1 - make sure that at 9 a.m. water (some drops at least) comes out from the taps, because this morning I brushed teeth after breakfast with the mineral water ; forget the shower, of course; it happened to me two times. However, at 7,30 a.m. the water flow and pressure were abundant||2 - thank you for the free bottle of mineral water on the desk; I was not interested in the contents of the refrigerator, but why do you put one in the room if you keep it not connected to the mains and empty? How does it work?||3 – wireless is free, great; but in my room the wireless signal was not available; however, yes!!! it was in the lobby; very good; it is however a pity that all efforts to connect DO fail miserably with a terrific consistency…. overloaded system? Eastern-western incompatibility???||4 – no safe in the room !!! so, go around the city with all your money, cards, passport ….luckily it seems a peaceful quiet city, but an hotel with that price should have a safe||5 - The air conditioning works with wild noisy diligence. It refuses to compromise on the temperature and the fan speed it decides autonomously. Pressing buttons is just for the guest’s entertainement.||Any good news? Yes.||1 - The bathrobe! Incredible. Balanced however by the very scarce number of hangers for jacket, trousers etc. ||2 – Rooms are very large, the bed is large and good.||Breakfast: acceptable, offered in army style containers, seats in an underground air raid bunker. No frills. ||||Final touch: registration very slow. Copy, photocopy, another copy.....||||The price for all this: 100,00 € per day. Too much for the place and for the standard. But I do not know how other hotels in Samara do compare with this.||Let's say..... semi-approved with a lot of...

The title might seem like an exaggeration, I could understand why but to be perfectly honest it is the truth and nothing but the truth. I live in New York City and crackheads hold down brownstones and have created better conditions then this Hotel, which should not even be considered a hotel. It should be consider a hostel. If this place was in the states it would be condemned for the horrible conditions that it is in. The room that the females and I was were staying was okay yet the door was questionable because it had issues with locking. I was concerned about the safety of our property. The bathroom situation was a deal breaker. This community bathroom looked like a scene out of Saw 4. I didn't even make it in before I turned around to refuse to utilize it. We ended up switching rooms to a room with a bathroom in it. They original quoted us, 800 rubles and later doubled the price to 1600 rubles for a upgrade, just because we were from the States. The were hustling us and my friend who was Russian original quoted the first price and the women behind the desk chose to double it for us. Before purchasing the room we ask to see it and it was a lot better than the other yet the sheets needed to be changed. When we told them we would take it and ask for the sheets to be changed they said they were fresh sheets. Those sheets looked like someone had a good time on them and had fresh stains of well lets say...we had to remove the top covers and just sleep on the sheets. The would not change them at all. It was completely disgusting. Outside of the sheet issue we had the national convention of mosquitos and other bugs meeting in our room. We all left with terrible bug bites all over our bodies. We had to open all the windows and stuff because there was no fan or air conditioning. I was completely appalled by this place. I would even wish my worst enemy to stay here. I would not recommend people stay in this place. If you stay I would go to the main building. Do not be fooled when you look at this hotel because they are only showing you the nice facility. There are two and this is a waste of your money and...

First of all, please note that Bristol has two buildings, situated on the same street. If you are going to stay at this hotel, choose only main building. The other one is absolutely frustrating. It is located in the very old building with the last renovations made in the early 70's. I was surprised when I did not see rats and cockroaches in the room. But still the odour from the toilet room was enough to run out from there. Keep in mind, that you may be povided with a bed in dormitory room without being noticed about it beforehand.||||As for the main building, it is of course better. Lobby, halls, stairs are really nice. Room is spacious, but badly furnished and decorated. The smell in the room is very strange as well, may say musty or fuggy.||||The walls in the hotel are very thin and in the early morning you will definitely be awakened by people who get up early and by hotel's staff which use portable radio-sets for communication. You will hear every single word.||||The bar and the restaurant were not impressive too. The bar is a small dirty smoke-filled room with sleepy barman and shady characters wearing shellsuits with boots. The restaurant looks ok, but the food is disgusting there. Cold omelet was uneatable, the same about vegetables which were not fresh at all even in the early morning.||||No complaints about the staff at the reception.||||In the end of the day I shall say that I did not have lots of chances to explore hotels in Russia outside Moscow. Most part of my business and leisure trips are directed to Europe. Samara was one of the first experiences and it wasn't enjoyable at all. However, I may suppose that a person who travels across Russia a bit more often will find this hotel very cozy and nice in comparison...