The Ultimate Guide to Hostel Fireplace

Hostel Fireplace is real! Katy, Tom, and I stayed there for 7 nights in August 2012, and loved it. There are a few drawbacks, but nothing major. Read on.

How to find Hostel Fireplace

The hostel is on the 4th floor of building 23 on Zagorodny Prospekt. You have to walk down a cul-de-sac/alley to get to it. It isn’t scary. The door is #4 on the left. Don’t go into door #4 of the building on the right. We got confused and did that… it was dark and scary. The taxi from the airport cost about 60 rubles and was maybe 20 minutes with zero traffic. You could also take a bus/subway combo. We didn’t do that because it was supposedly about 1.5 hours.

On the map:

Here’s Street View:
Hostel fireplace Alley view

Here’s a link to Google Maps zoomed in on that building.

Getting Around

You can take the metro at Zvenigorodskaya or Dostoyevskaya, a 5-10 minute walk from the hostel. 1 metro trip cost 27 rubles as of August 2012. Just buy metro tokens from the people behind the windows.

A walk to the Neva River where the Hermitage and Saint Isaac’s Cathedral are located takes about 25 minutes at a brisk pace. But getting anywhere takes time in St P if you walk, so this is actually pretty close, especially considering the price.

Costs

We booked on HostelBookers and saved a few bucks from other websites. We got a private room with 3 single beds and a shared bath. Our total was $560, so about $27 per person per night. Steal for what we got, I think. This included

  • a nice clean room with housekeeping
  • breakfast delivered whenever we woke up
  • hot showers
  • Wifi
  • a shared fridge

Breakfast is good, but it is the Eastern European variety, interesting for an American palate. Hot cereal, white bread with mayo, meat, and cucumber, etc.

Things to be aware of

  1. The shower does have hot water. Be patient and fiddle with it.
  2. The Wifi is fast. You can easily do Skype or stream movies.
  3. They don’t have screens on the windows, and it gets pretty humid and warm in the Summer, so mosquitoes get in the room. Bring bug spray.
  4. The people who run the Hostel don’t speak any English. They are super nice, but we couldn’t communicate at all. The people who will email you after you book speak English, but you’re unlikely to ever meet them.
  5. There’s no hangout space. If you’re looking to meet other travelers, this isn’t the place to do it.

Overall – good times!

We were really pleased with our cost, location, comfort, and care. The place isn’t noisy, and the food was great. The wifi was dependable and we felt secure leaving our valuables in the room. The biggest drawback was the difficulty in communicating. Go visit St Petersburg!

Author: Matt

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