Camping Indoors, Soviet style

Travels with David: Asia, Africa and The Balkans

Provincial Soviet-era hotels reflect the ostentatious public architecture of the Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras. The impressive facades often conceal dark and drab interiors, with poor heating and ventilation, dangerous wiring, and leaky pipes. Even small cities boasted establishments with several hundred rooms. Of course, the number bore no relation to the expected number of guests. In an economy based on artificial production quotas, not on demand for products and services, there was no place for market research. Hotel occupancy rates may still be a state secret in some former Soviet republics, but my guess is that most government hotels in provincial centers don't fill more than 20 percent of rooms most of the time. And without guests, they don't have the money to modernize. These hotels have one saving grace—the dezhurnayas, the floor ladies. Remember to tip her.