So on our final trip as part of the adoption, we found ourselves in Moscow for several days. We opted for an apartment instead of a hotel room. Some of the motives that inspired a choice of apartment is:
1) Apartment is cheaper than any decent hotel- by almost half.
2) Apartments have a full kitchen allowing us to cook meals rather than eat out every meal- another significant savings.
3) Most important to us- by having a kitchen we were able to stay in when Daniel was napping and not obligated to go out unless it was what we wanted (vs what we needed).
4) Having an apartment gave us more space than most hotel rooms.
With that said, here are some pictures of the Old Arbat Rainbow Suite.
View down the street from the balcony
View out the window
View down the hallway
View of the kitchen
View of 'master' bedroom
View of second bedroom
View of living room
So what worked well? Well the most obvious thing that worked well was location, location, location! We were only ~70 yards from Old Arbat street. Leaving the apartment you'll find yourself VERY close to Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Muy-Muy. Also,the view out the window as shown was really nice. The apartment was simple but functional. We'd stay there again without hesitation or reluctancy. The apartment provided courtesy rolls, jam, butter, eggs and oatmeal. We were able to stretch it and made it last for the duration of time we were at the apartment.
Things I'm neutral on? There weren't a lot of utensils/cookware. We made due but would have appreciated more. The apartment is on the second floor. You must take a flight of stairs even to get to the elevator. This means it isn't friendly to wheelchairs or even strollers. Not a show stopper, but just realize you'll need to carry any wheeled mobility items up the stairs. The apartment had 2 keys- but only one worked on the outside door. One was all we needed, but it is just a note of observation. Caution is in the information book about drinking the tap water- I suspect not a problem limited to this apartment but affecting much of Moscow. I easily overcame this by using the Steripen Classic water purifier originally purchased for backpacking. The apartment has a washing machine but not a dryer. This appears to be a cultural difference. Don't use the rack in the hallway or it will stain your clothes, but we hung ours in the closet and turned on the fan and they dried overnight. The balcony was used for storage. Not really a disappointment, but they are missing chance to turn this great covered area into a truly memorable space. As far as the beds/bedrooms... the beds weren't ultra comfortable and it was rather obvious they were low end mattresses, but they were clean and we were tired enough each day they provided the necessary rest. The second bedroom was without any nightstands or closet space (just a room with a bed). Again, not a negative but just an observation of reality that I feel should be noted.
And what didn't work so well? the apartment is supposed to have free phone calls (even back to the USA). I couldn't get *any* phone calls to work right. However, the wireless worked well enough I just used T-Mobile's VOIP to make phone calls without cost from my cell phone. A second complaint is trash disposal. There is nothing in the information book about what to do with your trash and I couldn't figure it out properly. I won't disclose how I adapted to overcome, but I am pretty certain it wasn't the intended method to dispose of trash. Finally, I understand this was a maid-serviced apartment. They told us the maid would come after 3 days but even that didn't happen for us. We ran out of paper towels on the first day and would have run out of toilet paper had we stayed there even one more day. Oh... one more thing- I couldn't find the controls to regulate the temperature inside. We made it work by opening and closing windows, but I would have preferred a more modern method. :-)
All things considered, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the apartment to any other adoptive families... and the size of this apartment is larger than most and the location was so great. To add details to the location- it is an easy walk to the US embassy, across the park from the US ambassadors personal residence, very close the the 24hr grocery store and convenient to the Smolenskaya Metro station.
