From personal experience: how to live in a hostel from a few months to a year. Hostel is a great way to stay overnight while traveling

Many travelers, when planning their budget (in other words, doing a useless business) often sigh and click their tongues indignantly at the sight of the amount received in the "Accommodation" line. And indeed - even the cheapest hotels wring out huge sums for an overnight stay, measured in tens of euros per night. How can you save on this? It's simple - you need to spend the night in a hostel.

As Wikipedia tells us, a hostel is a public inn that offers travelers sleeping accommodation for a very small fee. In fact, your hostel is the most cheap way spend the night somewhere, however, the economy of such an overnight stay is achieved by a low level of living comfort. So the hostel is:

Joint lodging for the night with strangers and strangers (a few first minutes) people. You will have to share a room with a different number of people, from 4 to 24. In some hostels, men and women are accommodated together, in some - separately.

From the service - a bed and linens, a socket. Sometimes - Internet, paid in the room and free in the lobby.

Shared bathroom and toilet. Sometimes you can find soap in the bathroom, and a towel in the linen set.

Breakfast, which can be free (" Buffet”) or for a fee. Breakfast is usually served strictly by the hour (for example, from 9.30 to 10.30).

The ability to hide your belongings in a safe - a large lockable box. In some hostels, they ask for some money for the lock to this box.

Free city maps at reception.

Many will say indignantly: “Why go to Europe and spend the night in some rooming house there, fearing that you will be stabbed at night and your things will be stolen?” We dare to answer them:

The most important advantage of staying in a hostel is the extremely low cost of a place. The author of these lines has personally visited an Amsterdam hostel, where they ask for 11 euros per night (despite the fact that it is very difficult to find a hotel cheaper than 50-70 euros per night). On average, a night in a hostel is cheaper than the cheapest hotel three times.

Optimization raised to the rank of an absolute. Why do you need a large and comfortable room in a hotel if you will walk and travel all day and sleep at night? What, in the end, is the difference how to sleep, alone in a room or ten?

Many live in hostels for the opportunity to communicate with other people. Just imagine - I spent the night with the manager of a large American construction company, a Berliner traveling to collect beer flavors, a Serbian married to a black woman, two cheerful Australian friends and a guy who did not speak any language I knew at all. People who live in hotels and talk only to servants do not see even a third of the life that can be seen from the hostel window. There are no homeless people, thieves and maniacs in hostels, 70% of those living in rooms are ordinary European students.

Sleeping and leaving things in hostels is completely safe. I traveled with an expensive camera and computer, not counting money and other nonsense, but I never had reason to fear for my property - all this was easily locked in a safe.

But some hostels may seem inconvenient:

Not all girls are ready to share their overnight stay in a room with strangers.

Some people experience particular discomfort from the fact that strangers are nearby. I saw a man who just didn't sleep all night because of this.

In most cases, in a hostel you will not find the comfort that you have in a hotel. Slippers, a towel, a large bed, a hairdryer in the bathroom - if all this is important to you, then c'est la vie.

Some people want to live in a hostel, but they can't afford it due to their rank - it's hard to imagine a big businessman in a shared room.

It is inconvenient to live in a hostel with your soulmate, with your family.

Well, in general, for me, traveling alone, hotels have ceased to exist as a class. Now I choose a hostel (you can easily find many specialized sites, the most famous of which is hostelworld.com), book it for ridiculous money and enjoy a full trip. Finally, a few simple tips on how to choose a hostel:

Carefully read the reviews on the site, the guests talk in detail about the shortcomings and pitfalls of living in a particular hostel.

Don't be afraid of Christian hostels - in many cases this is the ideal option. Perhaps they will put a bible by your bed and offer you to pray (you can refuse), but then you will have a clean bed for the night and your cellmates will definitely not have cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.

Pay attention to the availability of a free breakfast (with a certain impudence, you can eat all day at once), how the safe works (in some places they require a separate fee for the lock) and the availability of the Internet.

Look at the map - it should be convenient to get to the hostel. Do not believe the words on the site ("five minutes walk from the station" can turn into an hour of walking through an unfamiliar city).

I strongly advise you to try to stay at a hostel at least once - it's economical and very interesting. However, many do not know that there is a way to spend the night absolutely free of charge ... But we will talk about couchsurfing next time.

Any questions about hostels and accommodation in them are accepted in the comments.

The tourist fever that swept the world in the 20th century dictated its own rules. There is less and less demand for luxury hotels, and more and more for inexpensive, minimalist accommodation options. Now each price category of recreation has its supporters, however, hostels do not lose their popularity and hundreds of them open all over the world.

What is a hostel

A hostel is a guest house of absolutely any size, the owners of which offer their guests a minimum of amenities at an attractive price. A bed, a bedside table, a shared kitchen and a shower - that's probably all that a standard hostel can provide a traveler. However, for many comfortable rest more is not necessary.

The very first hostel was a school classroom with bags of straw spread on the floor. The authorship of this economical solution belonged to the German teacher Richard Schirmann, who wanted schoolchildren to travel a lot, but did not have money to provide them with housing on trips.

Features of booking hostels

Popular hostel booking resources are:

• www.hostelbookers.com
• www.hihostels.com
• www.hostelworld.com
• www.hostelsclub.com
• www.hostels.com

* All require a 5-10% deposit at the time of booking.

As a rule, payment for the hostel occurs when booking, however, if part of the funds will need to be paid on the spot, check in which currency it is better to do this and withdraw the required amount in advance.

The cost of renting a place in a hostel depends not only on its comfort, but also on the country in which it is located.

Also, do not disregard the rules of the hostel and internal regulations. In some of them you can not bring guests, listen to music, drink alcoholic beverages or smoke.

Pros and cons of hostels

Like any accommodation option, the hostel has its pros and cons.

To start with the pleasant:

• The main plus, of course, is the price. Although in large European cities hostels are slightly more expensive than the norm, yet they cannot be compared with hotels.
• Also, hostels are good for large, versatile companies that gather in them. Here you can find a companion for any excursion, learn a couple of new dishes or an unfamiliar game.
• Hostels gather guests from different countries, and the staff, as a rule, speaks one or two languages, so it is easier to improve your knowledge of a foreign language here than in a hotel.
• The lack of many material amenities in hostels is trying to compensate for entertainment. Discos are held here, organized free tours, collected in common areas Board games and books.

And now to the negative points:

• The hostel is almost always noisy and privacy is nowhere to be found.
• Absolutely unfamiliar people from different countries can live in the room. Some of them snore, some take pictures of everything that catches their eye, and some chat on Skype at night.
• Despite the lockers, cases of theft of valuable property are not uncommon.
• Bathrooms are located at the end of the corridor or, if you're lucky, in the room, but they still can't be considered personal, so it's better not to leave your toothbrush there.
• During “rush hours”, that is, in the morning and in the evening, a crowd gathers in the bathroom and in the kitchen and you can stand in line for a long time.

The most unusual hostels in the world

Hostels are also fighting for attendance, like hotels, but they don’t take luxury, but unusualness. Among them there are those who need to book places in which you need six months before the trip.

Yunak Evleri, Türkiye

One of the oldest hostels in the world is located in the caves next to the Cappadocian " stone pillars". From the outside, it looks intimidating, but inside tourists are not waiting for stone beds at all, but quite cozy rooms with electricity, water and modern technology.

Radeka Downunder Coober Pedy, Australia

A good accommodation option for claustrophobic fighters is in Australia. Unpresentable hostel rooms are located in the former mines, which you can get into at best after a six-month queue.

Jumbo Stay Hostel, Sweden

One of the planes available in Stockholm never flies anywhere, but passengers regularly board it. The fact is that a hostel is located in it, where takeoffs and landings from the nearest airport are constantly broadcast, and interior decoration almost unchanged. So those who are afraid of flying can start fighting their phobia aboard the Jumbo Stay Hostel.

Tubo Hotel, Mexico

It was necessary to build a hostel near the Teposteco National Park in the shortest possible time and with a ridiculous budget. Therefore, the builders decided to remake concrete pipe trimmings for numbers. Now inside each of them there is a small locker, a double bed and lighting.

Brumund Vandrerhjem, Norway

The embodiment of a childhood dream - a tree house - was decided to be built in a Norwegian forest. Rooms are designed for 5-7 guests, instead of a shower cabin there is a lake, squirrels often drop in on guests, and if you go overboard with alcohol, there is a chance you simply won’t get home.

There are also hostels in railway cars (Sydney), former prisons (Ljubljana), lighthouses (California) and other unusual places.

Rules for staying in hostels

The basic rules of accommodation are the same all over the world, however, before booking a place, you need to clarify the features of the selected hostel. General points include:

• Non-smoking in individual rooms or throughout.
• No return to the hostel after 23:00‒01:00.
• The ban on being in the room during cleaning (from 11:00 to 12:00).
• The ban on active pastime, communication and noise in the rooms after 23:00.
• Prohibition on the use of other people's products or things without the permission of the owner.

The undocumented rules can be considered to be in the bathroom for no more than 20 minutes and actively participate in common entertainment.

There are thousands of illegal overnight stays in Moscow. residential buildings

The word "hostel" entered our lexicon not so long ago. It is associated with something foreign, cheerful and carefree: tourists, students, travel, adventures.

However, in Moscow, such establishments have a completely different image, and the people who live in them are mainly those who came to the capital from poor countries and small towns to look for work.

There are a huge number of these hostels - in the very center of Moscow, on Pokrovka Street alone, there are already 38 of them. But they try very hard to be inconspicuous, and therefore even permanent residents of the area are often not aware of their existence.

I try to check into a hostel: I find the address on the site and go to the Ilyich Square area. I specifically ask grandmothers and mothers with strollers for directions - they are definitely residents of the area. But no one knows that there are hostels here, although, according to the Internet, there are at least a dozen of them in the area.

You can find the desired institution only by address. The administration is quite polite, they show the rooms. I wanted to get out as soon as possible: very similar to a cell in a prison. There are bars on the windows, walls painted dead grey, rows of bunk beds and bedside tables next to them. There is no more furniture - no cabinets, no chairs, no mirrors. Light bulbs shine with a dim light, it is impossible to read under such conditions - however, it is unlikely that anyone here reads books. Everything, of course, is shabby from the heart, the bed linen is gray and rough.

Happiness to spend the night in this nice place costs 300 rubles. I refuse this happiness.

Girls in tracksuits are smoking at the entrance. I ask if they are from the hostel. They reluctantly answer yes. I say that I'm thinking of moving in, I ask about cockroaches and bedbugs.

I didn’t see cockroaches, I won’t lie, ”says one of them, named Tamara. - And the bugs bite. Otherwise, it’s fine here, don’t be afraid, the men from the men’s rooms don’t bother, they are all busy, they don’t care about us ...

Tamara also says that the interior solutions in the room are not accidental. Since hostels are usually located on the first floors of buildings, bars in the windows are necessary, and they save not from thieves, but from free visitors. Bunk beds allow you to accommodate more guests, and the lack of furniture saves space for these beds. The walls are painted gray so that bedbugs are not visible, and dim light bulbs are screwed in because of them: there is an opinion that bedbugs do not bite in the light, and guests are advised not to turn off the electricity at night, and you will not fall asleep in bright light.

I learn that it is strictly forbidden to eat in the rooms, otherwise cockroaches are added to the bugs, there are separate rooms for cooking and eating. Tea, coffee, sugar and drinking water are free.

The harsh living conditions in the hostel dictate an appropriate culture of communication, almost like a prison.

For example, one girl in our room started eating chips in bed, says Tamara. - I thought that prohibitions were not for her. Other women in the room explained to her intelligibly - the package was taken away, they promised to “give it to the scoreboard” next time. No cockroaches, no disassembly with the administration due to violation of the rules, no one needs.

I'm going to another hostel, to Kitay-Gorod. I call the intercom - no one answers. I wait until a woman comes out of the entrance, I ask her about the hostel.

They closed it, we complained with the whole entrance, all this is illegal. They come up with words: hostel, hostel. Nochlezhka - that's what it was. And there will be no more, do not come!

The main advantage of such miserable hostels for all visitors is the ability to check in immediately and pay by the day. After all, you never know when you will get a job - in a day, two, a week. People come to such a hostel to, as they say, change over the first days in a new place. At the same time, the price is not at all small: the cheapest bed costs 250 rubles per day, a little better - 500-600. For that kind of money, you can rent a separate room, but there they ask for a fee for 2-3 months plus a deposit.

Therefore, hostels of this kind are a passage courtyard: people are constantly changing, no one leaves their things in the room: with a continuous change of guests, it is quite possible to come in the evening and not find them.

Olga, who arrived from Poltava three years ago, says that as soon as she found permanent job on Lubyanka in a cafe, moved from such a hostel to a similar institution of a different kind - to a hostel-hostel on the Red Gate. It was a 5-room apartment in a Stalinist building. Four rooms for men and one for women, 4-6 people in each, also on bunk beds. Here, the guests did not change daily, but rented a bed for a month for 7 thousand rubles. There was already some comfort here: it consisted in the absence of bedbugs and the presence of cabinets and hangers. However, the curtains on all windows always had to be drawn - so that the bunk beds were not visible from the street and the residents of the house did not complain.

The rules are just as strict: eat only in the kitchen, come to the hostel no later than 11, do not bring friends and acquaintances, do not drink alcohol and do not “twist” love. But the check-in was strictly at certain hours, in the middle of the night no one was bursting with suitcases, it was always possible to sleep well.

I would not advise anyone to break the rules, - Olga warns. - In addition to the fact that you can simply be evicted in the middle of the night or even handed over to the police in case of drunkenness or a fight, your data will be transferred to all hostels in Moscow, since often they either belong to the same owners, or the same people work in them . And no one needs problems with the guests.

Olga believes that life in a hostel-dormitory is not much worse than in a rented room. Another plus of such housing, in addition to the price, is the location. Most hostels are located in the center of Moscow, and this is where, as a rule, visitors look for work - in cafes, in shops. And even if the job is not located in the heart of the capital, then getting to it is easier from the center than from the outskirts. This results in significant savings in travel time and money. And at first, every penny counts for visitors. Wage arrears threaten hungry days.

I was constantly shaking that I would be left without money, so I couldn’t even think of renting a room - it’s 10–12 thousand to pay, plus another fare. I didn’t want to shoot with someone either: there were no acquaintances, and with strangers it’s the same hostel, only it has an administration that keeps order. Those who come from other countries need a lot of money for documents in Russia, so you need to constantly save up both just in case and for a rainy day. Thank God, now there are cards and you do not need to leave cash at the hostel or carry all the savings with you. I don’t remember any high-profile cases of theft - maybe because people don’t have anything valuable in hostels?

But here people always manage to make friends and help each other. No interethnic and regional conflicts. Donbass and Western Ukraine, Moldavians and Hutsuls, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks - here everyone forgets about the strife at home.

I had a situation where I was not paid at work for two weeks. I literally already ate a bun with tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the kitchen, construction guys from Lipetsk noticed this. They offered me to eat with them, I was uncomfortable, I refused. But they did this: they themselves ate, left the kitchen, and left food for me so as not to embarrass me. Then they agreed that I cook for them, and they feed me - it seems like this is not a treat, this is how I earn bread. Later, when they had salary delays, I also bought food for everyone. In general, if you know how to do at least something with your hands, you will never be left hungry or without a roof over your head in a hostel, you can always agree with the administrator - you will replace him, wash the floors or the kitchen. And if the hostel with breakfast, you can agree to cook.

However, whatever low prices in a hostel, even giving this money to people for housing can be a pity. Many visitors try to find work with accommodation or at least with a hostel.

Ideally, it would be nice to have a job where you can stay overnight, wash yourself, store some things, even if it’s not even a full-fledged housing, but some kind of nook or utility room, Olga shares her experience. - But the workers' hostels, which are offered for 3-5 thousand a month, often turn out to be simply terrible: there is dirt, noise, stench, common rooms for men and women, people rarely stay there for more than a month.

And the young entrepreneur Nikita told me why Moscow hostels have nothing in common with Western hostels - inexpensive, but clean and comfortable accommodation, which is used mainly by young people and travelers.

Nikita came to the capital at the age of 17, was a student of the budget department. He lived first in a hostel, then rented an apartment with friends. When he became a hair stylist, he preferred to rent an apartment near his work.

One day, a regular client, Alexei, suggested that Nikita look at his hostel.

Lesha told me that he bought such a business with his partner Anton and wants to listen to my advice: how to fix and equip it there. At the same time, he offered to live for free. Well, who would refuse such a thing! Especially when I saw the entrance old house with a wide staircase on Khitrovskaya Square, was delighted. Same historical places described by Gilyarovsky!

Nikita learned that young businessmen Aleksey and Anton rented a large three-room apartment from a woman in the center for 110,000 a month and tried to make money by renting out beds for different periods. Each room housed 4-5 people, a night cost 550 rubles, and you could first settle for a month for 11 thousand rubles.

The 20-year-old receptionist Katya worked in the hostel. It had daily cleaning and check-in of new guests.

This girl was not particularly neat and lazy. I, on the contrary, am very sensitive to order due to my profession - no one will go to a stylist with dirty tools and an untidy workplace. So he kicked her constantly, forced her to clean up. Sometimes patience ended and I myself took a rag in my hands. In fact, I controlled the work of the administrator for my stay and, if necessary, replaced it. We did not allow eating in the rooms. But all the guests preferred to eat in the kitchen. We did not have cockroaches, because the cleaning was daily and with bleach.

The owners of the hostel counted on a decent audience: students, tourists. Nikita was also involved in advertising and marketing. He was constantly written by people who were looking for an overnight stay in Moscow. And among the representatives of the desired contingent, the reaction to the offer to live in a hostel has always been negative.

For a long time I could not understand what was the matter. I thought we were very cool. Perfect cleanliness, good repair, new furniture. In the kitchen we hung a huge map of the world, everyone was marked with pins, who came from where. Tea, coffee and water are free in almost all hostels, we added cookies, sweets, apples and tangerines to this - we specifically looked for promotions in stores.

Despite this, a relatively solvent public did not settle in the hostel. And, accordingly, it almost did not bring income to the owners. When the owner of the neighboring apartment also decided to rent it out as a similar establishment, Anton and Aleksey decided to make a family hostel for people with children there.

We invested in expensive repairs, bought suitable furniture and appliances. Even the coffee maker here was not simple - controlled via Wi-Fi, costing more than 100 thousand.

The first guests - foreigners - were very satisfied with the accommodation and wrote good feedback on sites. The new elite hostel began to be actively booked, it would seem that things went uphill. However, new problems awaited businessmen.

At first we could not understand what was the matter. As soon as the check-in in both hostels was complete and we were earning money, both landladies began to demand from us additional fee, and increased it very significantly. As a result, in March, when there were few guests, we had problems with paying the rent. And then the owner of the apartment where the family hostel was located, simply changed the locks and did not let us in. She told us that she no longer wanted to do business with us, and set up a brothel there in literally words. Following her, the owner of the first hostel also refused us and rented the apartment to other people. Who also opened a hostel there.

The new tenants quickly condensed the living space. They threw out all the tables and bedside tables and put more beds. The price of accommodation was reduced, and guest workers from the Russian provinces and the CIS poured into the hostel.

It was then that I realized why people flatly refused to live in hostels when I communicated with them on the Internet. Such an institution as a Moscow hostel has already developed a certain image. And, alas, negative. I saw the truth of this opinion with my own eyes. Our cozy, clean apartment instantly turned into a pigsty. The rooms are full of people, there is nothing to breathe, no one cleans the sink in the kitchen, showers and toilets. For new guests, the main parameter was cheapness, they had no time for frills. The entrance also became dirty, they constantly smoked there, drank beer, vodka. I lived in this new hostel for a very short time - while I was choosing a new home. You go to bed at night, and in both bathrooms, sorry, someone is having sex.

According to Nikita, his friends are no longer in this business. Because a “civilized” hostel brings less income than a compact and cheap hostel, and it is more profitable for apartment owners to rent out their housing for the latter option.

Alas, greed still rules the show in this area, - Nikita summed up.

Lawyer Alexander Karabanov comments on the situation: “Now it is forbidden by federal law to place hostels in residential buildings. The state is trying to regulate this niche, but at the same time, there are thousands of hostels in the center of Moscow that interfere with the activities of the indigenous people. This illegal business is possible only with "protection" local authorities authorities. To normalize the situation, citizens need to show an active civic stand and write applications to the prefecture and police departments in order to stop this illegal business.”

I, like many of those who read this material, live in Vladivostok. For work, sometimes I manage to travel to different settlements Russia. Yes, the profession of a journalist involves business trips and big cities, and to tiny villages, the names of which you hear almost for the first time.

August brought a trip to the youth educational forum "Tavrida". We had to go to Simferopol, next to which the forum is being held, by plane from Moscow. Tickets from Vladivostok were bought in such a way that I had three days to get acquainted with the city.

In addition to cultural outings and exploring the capital, the question arose of how and where to spend the night. I didn’t have the opportunity to stay with friends, I didn’t want to spend money on a hotel room, and the prospect of not sleeping and not washing for three days was not particularly pleasing, so I, sitting in one of the fast food cafes beloved by visitors, began to look for hostels in Moscow.

If you believe the information on the Internet, the first hostel was opened at the beginning of the 20th century by a German teacher Richard Schirmann. He allowed the suffering for a small fee to sleep within the walls of the school, where he taught children during the day (according to another version, once because of weather conditions he had to put the children to bed right at school). So he got the idea to open a similar institution.

The hostel in its modern sense appeared in Altena Castle in the western part of Germany.

In Russia, the first hostel was opened in 1992 in St. Petersburg, and a year later appeared in Moscow. Today, only the lazy have not heard of such a phenomenon, but this is not accurate.

On the website of a magazine that calls Moscow a big village, I came across an interesting article: people told me why they live in hostels all the time. One of the heroes spoke about the Apricot Hostel.

Either because of the name, or because of the cozy photos, it seemed to me that it would be good option. In addition, it is located in the center of Moscow, to walk to Red Square, for example, no more than fifteen minutes.

Navigator in the phone helped to get to right place without too much trouble. In front of the door, I ran into two noisy girls in extremely short shorts who were trying to call the administrator to help them lift their suitcases. As it turned out later, it was they who became my neighbors.

There is no elevator in the old five-story building. You need to climb to the fourth (or third) floor - it's easy if your legs and arms are in order.

During the daytime, the door to the apartment is always open. Apparently, the administrators are hoping for an intercom and the absence of hooligans. The bell, as I understood, standing one day at five in the morning at the door of the hostel, simply does not work.

If we talk briefly about the system of hostels, then it is similar to life in a hostel. Several different people can live in the same room, with different sexes and completely unfamiliar with each other. There are several rooms in my hostel: in some rooms only women or men live, there are mixed rooms and rooms for families.

For 500 rubles a day, they put me in a six-bed room with a view of a typical Moscow courtyard.

There are three bunk beds in a long room with one window, clothes hangers and a mirror on the wall, there is also a kind of shelf near the wall. By the way, the day here is still special - check-in is possible from two in the afternoon, but you need to leave the room by 12 noon.

Heard a lot of stories from different people about how they get to know each other, find new friends and like-minded people in hostels, so the desire for something like this periodically popped up in my head. But during the day I did not see anyone except my neighbors and a man of about fifty in the kitchen. Foreigners also stay in hostels, this is an undoubted advantage of such accommodation - language practice and acquaintance with another culture are available.

Going out to the kitchen in the morning, I found a family from Kazakhstan there, peacefully drinking tea. Of course, it became clear from the conversation. Husband and wife, whose complex names have already been erased from memory, came from Alma-Ata with their daughter. She entered Moscow University as a designer, and her parents did not want to let her go alone for the first time. They were surprised to learn that I came from Vladivostok, which, in their opinion, is very far and expensive. To be honest, during the trip there was a feeling that in central Russia all visitors from Far East they look with undisguised curiosity, because many of my new acquaintances, in their words, "simply cannot afford to study Russia so far." From St. Petersburg to Finland, for example, it will be cheaper to go. The hostel has a shared kitchen for everyone. In it you can find everything you need in order to drink tea, warm up food or even cook dinner. All this is included in the price. There is just no food. Fortunately, there are many grocery stores in the center. In our kitchen there is a special shelf - everyone can put something from food on it or take it if they need it. I took tea, of which, by the way, several boxes were left there. In the morning, guests are drawn out of their rooms for breakfast, at lunchtime there is almost no one, and in the evening the room comes to life again. People are being asked to sign food if they leave it in the communal refrigerator, as it could be eaten after a while. There are several rules in the kitchen: do not leave garbage and, if possible, do not break the dishes. For their violation - a fine.

Each room has large windows typical of old buildings. From these windows, even the gray courtyard seems special. Probably, in the journey, everything ordinary appears in a different light. If everything is more or less clear with food, we can go to the "living room" and the soul. In the common room, almost always someone is sitting, reading a book or watching TV. If you are not a sociophobe, then watching a movie and getting to know your neighbors is at least not boring. Two showers, a washing machine, a toilet, an iron and a clothes dryer are all available. For the three days that I lived in the hostel, I never ran into a queue.

To be honest, there were not so many people in the hostel, so all my hopes for a lamp company and foreign friends were not justified. Several people became my acquaintances on different evenings: an elderly couple from China, with whom we exchanged smiles in the kitchen, a young man from Nalchik who gave chocolate, a family from Kazakhstan and a girl who has been living in a hostel for about a month, since she is a freelancer and works remotely for another city, but hopes to get a suitable job in Moscow in due course. My roommates appeared extremely rarely, therefore, we can say that in the hostel, where I returned for three days after walking, I had the opportunity to live alone in a six-bed room. This seems strange in the season of the influx of tourists, since it is on budget travelers, students, surviving hippies and all other travelers around the world are designed for such establishments.

My acquaintance with life in a hostel turned out to be quite pleasant, so I decided to continue to stay in hostels. Of course, after reading the reviews and comments about them.

By the way, hostels reached Vladivostok only a few years ago. On this moment there are no more than ten of them in the city.

Information about the hostels of the capital of Primorye and couchsurfing can be found on the air of Radio Mediametrics. Vladivostok at the link below.

It’s always like this, you travel for two days, then you write about the trip for a week (and when will you live?).

In general, I still have two uncovered questions: the museum of Venichka Erofeev in Kirovsk and the Sheri hostel in Apatity.
Both topics were postponed until the end, because:
- writing about a museum required concentration on the subject
- to write about the hostel, it was necessary to get away from the subject in time and space.
In three days, enough deletion has taken place, so that today:

In fact, this picture says it all. But if it's not clear enough, then

It looks like "Sheri" on the site

And so in reality

This is not a complaint, but a preface.

It would be easier than easy to write unambiguously positive feedback about value for money, helpful staff and done with soul. Such reviews in the assortment are presented on the website of the hostel.
It would be easier than ever to write an unambiguously negative review about sucks, horror and lost money.

But the fact of the matter is that the impressions of "Sheri" are deeply ambiguous. I don't want to scold them indiscriminately. The guys are trying and have done a lot of good things, and they command respect for many, starting from the fact of their existence. However, I don’t want to praise indiscriminately either. There are many friends who travel to the north, and they must have an objective picture and understand what exactly they are choosing if they choose this place to live.

But let's start with the good. From the good:

Good site. Clear, informative, easy to find. It also contains information about other housing in Apatity and Kirovsk, and not just about your loved ones. And also about other usefulness and interesting things in the area.
- communication skills. Fast, friendly and adequate response to both calls and letters. A rarity for domestic establishments. personal communication also very pleasant.
- large and noticeable signs that remove the problem of finding a building hidden in the depths of courtyards. Also a rarity.
- the wi-fi promised by the site really was and worked fast enough for us to watch a movie without any problems.
- there was a mini-library in the common hall; a fair-sized rack with books that were very useful to me on a sleepless night.

Now for the bad.

The general view of the building where the hostel is located does not make a pretty impression at first sight. It's not the hostel's fault, it's not the only hostel in the building. I am not at all against depressive casemates, but there was no such photo on the site. Everything on the site was nice, clean and colorful. Therefore, right from the first glance at the building, there is an unpleasant feeling that you have been slightly cheated. This impression (as well as the characteristic composition of care and devastation) will be further reinforced by the view of the entrance.

Of the three entrances visible in the photo, the hostel owns the last one. The first is a diner. Here is the work schedule. Knowledgeable people everyone will understand without explanation.

The first person we saw when we drove up to the hostel was a character who could hardly stand on his feet, periodically falling into a snowdrift. It was at one o'clock. By 6-7 pm, the number of such characters in the vicinity of the building increased to 2-3, and their activity increased. They were not aggressive, but for some reason they did not improve the atmosphere.
To close the theme of the diner. For snacks, there are only frozen semi-finished products in boxes that can be heated in the microwave. The pathos of the institution is not to eat, but to drink.

Inside the hostel, the motives for the non-coincidence of the virtual representation with reality are intensified. Here, for example, the kitchen in the picture from the site

And here she is in the picture from reality

And so wherever you throw. On the one hand, there are cute details that are very conducive to the establishment.

With another...

The double room in which we lived, at first glance, contains everything you need

Plus cute optionals

At a second glance, it turns out that although the beds and bedding are clean, Ikea, the wall by the bed is frankly and unpleasantly dirty. And in the only available tee, the charging for the mobile phone does not hold and the mobile phone remains uncharged

But even this I was ready to go through, I was mowed down by what was discovered next. And then it turned out that the soundproofing in the hostel is zero. At the same time, our double room (and the double room in the layout of the hostel is the most expensive and implies that people pay for maximum privacy) is located in the most accessible place that you can imagine, literally at the crossroads of all roads. And at the same time, a children's sports team lives in the hostel ...

Only 4 hours in the evening, during which one and a half dozen healthy, athletic and sociable teenagers cruised past our door, and I was a ready patient in the neurosis clinic.

No, I understand that the hostel is not the National Hotel. I understand that life in a hostel involves a shared toilet, shower and kitchen. But I was not ready for the fact that life in a hostel completely excludes personal space.
Of course, not all citizens are so sensitive to sounds, and there are those who are lucky enough to ignore them completely. But if you are from the breed of sufferers who need silence, then it is better to be aware that when you go to a hostel, in terms of sounds, you doom yourself to a situation of a reserved seat car, completely dependent on random fellow travelers. And even in a second-class carriage this business is easier, somehow all the sounds are polished by the sound of wheels

But this did not end with personal space bummers. Given the sound environment, I could not sleep, I could only read. Reading requires light. The light in the room was provided by two long fluorescent lamps on the ceiling. All. No small lamps by the bed (which even econom-class train) did not have. And the number two-local. And my happy companion was already sleeping a sweet dream....

What's embarrassing about all this? Besides the fact that I decided on a hostel, indulging the greed of some of my relatives who wanted to save a thousand on the difference between the room in the hostel and the hotel?

The offensive thing about this is that it is very most deficiencies are very easy to correct. With minimal expense. There is very little difference between the cheapest tee and a little more expensive. You can still buy cheap or even find the simplest wall lamp for free. Washing a wall or even hammering a hole in the door with plywood costs nothing at all.
With soundproofing, of course, it is more difficult. But even here you can get by with relatively little blood, given huge selection soundproofing materials and the ability to change the location of rooms with a different number of beds.

It seems to me that the main problem here is not at all in money, but in the mentality. The fact that in the country of victorious socialism of communal apartments and camps, the concept of the need for personal space is simply absent in the minds. Even in the young, advanced and pretty minds that created and keep this hostel.

Guys! The hostel is cheap accommodation, but it's not a barracks. And personal space is needed even in a hostel. IMHO.

Due to the complexity of the emotions experienced, I do not send my review to the hostel website. But if its owners accidentally stumble upon my description, please do not be offended.
Guys, I really treat you and your cause with sincere sympathy. But I involuntarily appreciate this business from the inside, since my husband and I rented out our apartment for many years on a short-term lease, which in fact is very close to what you are doing. And you know what attracted customers to us and made them regular customers? Two simple things. Thoughtfulness of trifles - we always evaluated the apartment and asked others to evaluate it in terms of what else a guest might need: an umbrella? shoe dryer? clean notebook? And the second is the honesty of providing information. We also didn’t have a National, but there were shortcomings, such as a leak on the ceiling, dirt on the common stairs, etc. We ourselves photographed, described and posted on the site. Those who might be repulsed by it were repulsed. But right away. And not when they have already booked an apartment and they have nowhere to go. In any case, both those who refused and those who agreed to put up with shortcomings were grateful for the honesty.

And this is reputation. Perhaps the most important thing in the hotel business.