Hostel Snail - Moscow, Russia

Comment by Anonymous

July 2005

Snail is essentially NOT a hostel. It appears to be a service provided by a small company to rent out the poorer rooms located in a partially renovated hotel. It is not 10-15 minutes from the attractions, and including the walk and changing lines it is more like 30 minutes from the center, and there is very little around it. There is no sign outside to say it is there — you wander around and ask someone and they make a phone call and someone comes to get you. The receptionist for Snail was very nice and patient and spoke good English. They offered a service for booking tickets for our train to St Petersburg (at 25 percent charge). The sheets were clean. It seemed safe. These are the only good points. The room was very run down and apart from the sheets was dirty. There were sticky patches of carpet on the floor, and brown stuff oozing out of wallpaper. Our bathroom was shared with one other room, the cleaners staff room. They all (we saw about 6) used our bathroom for the toilet, showers, washing their dishes, whatever they felt like. It was not clean when we arrived and was only cleaned on the second of our three-day stay. There were no other facilities you expect from a hostel, no place to cook or make a cup of tea, no left luggage room, no washing facilities, no breakfast options. This was not a pleasant stay and I would not recommend it. It may be seen as cheap for Moscow but it was nowhere near worth the money that I paid (48 euros per night for two).