A Night Off In Soviet Style

---

We arrived in Omsk and quickly headed into the warmth of the terminal building to try and find a way out to the hotel. Having found there was no convenient public transport it was going to be our first Russian taxi experience. As we were heading out towards the front of the station, a smartly dressed man asked if we were after a taxi, having said yes he ushered us out to his waiting car and had our bags loaded in the boot. Pausing the proceedings, we asked how much the fare was going to be, to which he replied 500 roubles. Knowing the hotel was a way from town and over the river we figured £10 was a little steep but not unreasonable for the journey, so jumped in. Around 10 to 15 minutes of driving through the snow later we were at the hotel checking in.

Luckily for us we had a receptionist who spoke enough English for us to understand each other as long as we both wrote numbers on bits of paper. As we were, again, very early for our check-in time the twin room we’d been able to book wasn’t ready, but she offered us a double room for same rate if we didn’t want to hang around in reception till it was. Taking the double she showed us through a building site that was their renovation work to the rear of the hotel. The stark difference between the sleek pastel polished marble reception to the communist 70’s decor beyond the building work was unavoidably noticed. We found ourselves in a large room at the rear of the hotel off a corridor of peeling wallpaper and flooring, it looked like something straight out of a horror movie set. Feeling the strain of not sleeping too well on the trains and the early starts, we took the opportunity of the hotel being a way out of town to have a bit of down time. Enjoying the simple but well cooked food provided in the hotel at a very low price we had our lunch, evening meal and breakfast in their restaurant. With our first proper double bed of the trip and our own bathroom since Tallinn, we spent the afternoon catching up on all our writing and admin.

Before we knew it the alarm was going off for us to get out to the taxi for the station. We loaded our bags in the boot and jumped in the car with the young driver who gave us a spirited drive back to the station. Once at our destination, you can imagine our surprise when all he asked for was 170 roubles for the trip. That will teach us for not going to the taxi rank and haggling over the fare on our arrival. After a quick look round for a supermarket to no avail we got supplies for the train from a station vendor and boarded the train for the next leg to Krasnoyarsk.

---

Photos

View from the room window
The lumps in the front are sun loungers

Construction between reception and the room
You can see the different layers of decoration they were chipping through

Comments

[Frank Wright]

All OK?
No news for 2 weeks.... Is everything OK ? Dad