Staying with a friend, you experience the real St. Petersburg — and for many, that means vast apartment buildings with dreary public spaces, elevators that are both scary and skinny, and personal spaces that are quite comfortable. Join me on this unforgettable Russian elevator ride as we meet our friend Steve on the top floor of his building. (Please feel free to share any scary elevator-style memories you may have from crashing with friends in foreign countries.)
If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.
Comments
At least you HAD an elevator. I did home stays in several Russian cities in 2004, and aside from the malodorous stairways my biggest problem was the door locks, both for the buildings and the apartments. Getting in was an IQ test, while finding the right building was often a memory test, as there would be several apartment blocks together, all looking the same and without numbers
Bringing back great memories, thanks. I stayed with a friend in Romania and the elevator was cramped, made weird sounds and landed hard at each floor. Sometimes it even stopped at a different floor than the one we wanted. And the long dark hallways were out of some horror movie. I expected Count Dracula to lunge out at me at any moment. I had nightmares about it for days. Looking back on it now, I laugh as it was quite an experience. And that my friends is what makes traveling such a great adventure.
Looks like most of the lifts in Europe in small hotels. You can barely get two people and a small amount of luggage. I can see where the cruise may be the best situation for Russia, not very many people have friends there. I would imagine the hotels over charge like everything else there?
Count Dracula might be more welcoming. Before you buy into the travel industry/mark twain sales pitch that travel is fatal to bigotry,(with many thousands of your own hard-earned or inherited dollars) you might want to explore a bit further.
You didn’t have to tell me which country you were in, the sound of the elevator alone gave it away.
Brings back memories. I spend some time on a home stay in St. Petersburg. The apartment was just of Nevsky Prospekt but a world away. And then our hostess took us to one of the outer districts… that felt like a completely different galaxy, and not one I’d necessary like to visit often.