'High-Quality standarts'

The Izmailovo hotel is a massive, ugly, high-rise, Soviet-style complex with its own internal shops and restaurants; divided into 4 blocks (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta of course) each with some version of a  large atrium/fountain/dramatic sculpture/grand staircase, all covered in thin, shiny glass, marble, metallic surfaces and patterns; so a place which I readily recommend if you like that kind of thing. And their website is also a joy. 

'at least one surreal thing a day..'

Made it back to Moscow at last, for a week. Still so much in love with this place. If anything, even better going back as a tourist - knowing where I am but not being exhausted by the normal difficulties, just enjoying the many weirdnesses relative to bland old London. Which included a 4 hour traffic jam from the airport to the hotel, thus arriving at midnight, only to then remember that the hotel named on the visa voucher was just there to make it easy to get a tourist visa*, not because I was ever intended to stay. So no booking. Had to borrow the cash off of V to get a room for the night (no credit cards taken).

But good room, and inexpensive for Moscow. Plus, right next to Izmailovo Park, which I never got to before, partly out of a lack of enthusiasm for its over-hyped and (mainly) tacky souvenir market. So never quite sussed that it is a small-scale Russian-style over-the-top Disney-World. Ridculous and brilliant.**


* For those not in the know, if you travel to Moscow planning to stay at a friend's place, then you have to go through a nightmare arrangement involving personal invitations and separate registration processes. So, instead, everyone uses travel agents that just randomly name a hotel, just for the paperwork.
** Go here to see (slightly dated but nice) photographs of the Izmailovo market stalls. 

Unidentified packages (7)

One last thing from the Extreme Room, before I leave Perm behind. I can't really blame the package this time; I just did not bother to turn the lights on when I got back to my hotel and took what I assumed was a small bottle of wine out of the mini-bar for a (very) late evening drink.

Er, it was cognac. 

Perm - city of culture

Got the day (or rather night) wrong for my flight to Perm, and so had to do one of those running to the airport things, and then get onto a plane leaving at 1.30 and arriving at 5.30 in the morning (2 hour flight, 2 hour time difference) and then go straight into the conference, and my session and then all those associated 'performing animal' meetings and greetings and meals. Finally to this room - called the Extreme - trying and failing to be a downtown boutique hotel. I quite like it in a funny kind of a way, although the lovely translator delegated to keeping me happy said she found it scary.

Missing hotel

Walked down past Red Square and over the river yesterday, and finally noticed that the hotel was missing! Meaning the enormous Hotel Russia which I remember from my last visit 30 years ago as a massive, ugly and somehow typically Soviet solution to providing temporary accommodation for various delegates, trade unionists and other miscellaneous visitors from across the Union and occasionally beyond; each endless corridor of identical doors patrolled by an unsmiling babushka in charge of a samovar, from whom I never managed to extract a single cup of tea.

One of my friends said that it was just demolished without any notice: the stories are that the KGB had various equipment there they didn't want found (other buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin have disappeared in similar fashion.) Well, it was definitely hideous, but then Moscow is not rich in hotels. And doesn't seem that interested in developing the tourist industry - as you will know if you have attempted the process of getting a tourist visa.

If you want to see what the Hotel Russia looked like and the demolition, go to EnglishRussia.