For walking around shop-lined pedestrian streets and enjoying the feeling of the city, my favorite Moscow hotel turned out to be the Marriott Royal Aurora. Ask for comments, a local said “Yeah this is very close to center, and I think it’s about as high as you can go in Moscow without the hotel having a dedicated elevator for disposing of overdosed escorts….”
The location is fine for seeing the tourist high points. You’re almost next to the Bolshoi Theater and about a 10-minute walk from Red Square. More importantly, a lot of the city’s better restaurants and shops are immediately adjacent. It is convenient to Metro (trains run every minute during core weekday hours!) and bus services.
Breakfast was included in my $200/night (including tax) price for a “superior” room (as big as a “junior suite” in most hotels). This is served in a pleasant atrium (photos) and service is attentive and friendly. They’ll come by every 5 minutes or so to see if you want more coffee, some of the Russian sparkling wine, fresh juice, etc. There is an omelette station, meats and potatoes, fresh fruit, cold cuts, smoked fish, and a vegetable and pickle section. You could eat about four complete meals at the breakfast buffet and wouldn’t be hungry for the rest of the day (or week?).
If you do eat four meals per day during your one hour at the buffet, the gym is nice and pleasantly staffed 24/7. The pool is kind of small but was always empty during my stay so you could actually swim for exercise. There is also a hot tub, steam room, and sauna.
Front desk and concierge services are excellent.
The hotel laundry is an expensive piece-by-piece service (supposedly hotels don’t actually get rich off this and yet the price of washing a shirt is about the same as buying a shirt at Costco or Walmart; this would be a great subject for young economists to investigate!). Moscow doesn’t have laundromats or wash-and-fold services (everyone has a machine at home), so try to bring enough clothes for your entire stay or budget an extra $100 per-person for laundry.
Internet is free and throttled to about 4 Mbit/second. It works reliably with no annoying reauthorization process. You won’t be streaming Netflix, Amazon Prime, or YouTube into Russia, so this will be mostly for work.
Some alternatives that I considered…
- Four Seasons: right next to Red Square, but unless you just love seeing Chinese tour groups, this is less convenient for everything other than touring the Kremlin. The lobby is not all that nice or big.
- Ritz-Carlton. Russians seem to like this place.
- Park Hyatt. Russians also like this one. Very close to the Marriott.
- Metropol. A Gentleman in Moscow makes it sound fantastic, but in reality the lobby and restaurants are small and not that interesting. The atrium at the Marriott is actually nicer.
Back in 2009 I paid $85 a night to stay in a hostel in Moscow. A hostel.
I also remember paying $50 for a two person lunch in a Chinese restaurant (don’t ask me why – I think I was tired of Russian food by that time) which probably would have cost $20 anywhere else.
Moscow is crazy expensive. But maybe it’s cheaper now that usd:rub exchange rate is around 1:60, while back then in 2009 it was 1:30.
My wife will be disappointed that you favor Moscow over St.Petersburg, but she’s from Novgorod Oblast so they tend to hold a grudge against the Muscovites…
Hi Philip
I have been a lurker until now, but I enjoy your blog. Were you escorted on your stay, and how much Russian do you know? I ask because I’ve always wanted to go, but I speak no Russian, and if you believe the reports, there are some significant “safety” issues associated with visiting Moscow. I am not afraid of traveling to “dangerous” areas (i.e. I have spent significant time in Eastern Turkey, and I have been to the top of Mt. Benthal in the Golan Heights, where when the ISIS gun/mortar fire from 1km away stops, the locals wonder what is wrong), but I am curious about your advice for a solo traveler for a 3-4 day visit to Moscow. Thank you for the hotel tips.
Thanks, John, for reading! Most of the scary reports are from the pre-Putin days of chaos. I was warned by Russian emigres about pickpockets and various other scams, but the only people stealing from me during my trip were working at Verizon. As GermanL notes, the scary reports of shocking prices are also dated. Certainly restaurant meals are cheaper than in Boston.
Expats said that they felt safer at night in Moscow than in London or New York due to the fact that so many people are still up and out at night.
I took a couple of guided tours and was shown around by a combination of readers, friends of friends, and students at the university. But I also spent some time on my own and never felt unsafe or overly confused (the city has invested a lot in English-language directional signs to all kinds of places that they think tourists might want to go). Mostly having a local there will enrich your experience and understanding. (That said, it can be a little tough to find someone in a crowd willing to say “I speak English” and translate for you. Russians seem to be shy about their language skills.)
Google Maps and Uber completely change the experience of the tourist who doesn’t speak the language. You can get anywhere on foot or in a car without being able to read or speak. (At one tourist attraction, we met a female executive who had come out from Los Angeles to help out with Uber Moscow for six months. Of course we asked “How come you’re still alive? The New York Times assures us that Uber kills female employees.”)
I think I’ll do a post with my best tourist tips. Look for it over the next few weeks. I would advise you to try to do a trip longer than 4 days, though. I was there for a week and I was only barely getting over the jetlag at the end of the trip. Also, I’d say that it takes about 4-5 days to see most of the “must-see” sights and only at that point can you start experiencing the life of the city. Remember that Moscow is comparable in scale to Los Angeles, New York City, or Tokyo. I feel that I only scratched the surface after a week.