Basilica Hotel

Location is very good. Bus stop is only few steps. 15 min. walk from the Red Square. No indication outside about the hotel, like a secret place. Address is misleading 1a, in fact you have to ring the bell at 1b. The young cleaning lady was very kind and always smiling. Keep her! Opposite of it, receptionists were less warm and eager. The view of the room was disillusive - a cube shaped tiled trough with some old, dirty, cracking tiles (someone else already uploaded this pix in June 2018). One side of the cube was our window, upper side was a dirty, polycarbonate hollow sheet. We did not know wether to cry or laugh when we glanced it. Then we decided to laugh. Window blind holder was sticked to the wall that came off for the first time when we wanted to use it. We could not fixed it again as the sticker was not strong enough. It could have been a court room, so there was not any road noise in this room. Room number 14. Room and bathroom was clean. Bathroom was awfully smelly when we arrived, just because it was not used for a while and water evaporated from the sink and the smell could come out from the drain. This smell disappeared when we began to use the bathroom. No bathroom hooks. We did not request to change our towel (we did not throw them onto the floor), but it was changed. Please save water and energy, and do not change the towels if it is not requested. Almost new bathroom, that is relatively big compare to the room, enough boiling hot water any time. Room look liked quickly built and equipped for the World Cup and after it finished with heater and pipes, that were not well fixed or even not fixed at all to the wall. Heating was ok. Cleanliness ok. Towels ok. Wifi strong. We had a twin room. Beds looked like DIY wooden frames with two mattresses onto each other (supposedly the lower one is an old and not good to sleep on it any more). I slept with earplugs as we could clearly hear the door noises. Recommended: a close Georgian restaurant, approx. 300m from the hotel, on the opposite side of the street: Khinkal'naya Stumari, 4, стр. 2, Tessinskiy Pereulok, Moscow,109028. Waiter did not speak English.

Well the rooms were not as the posting was on the site when I booked ahead. We were there for the World Cup certainly seems some improvements done but they were makeshift. It’s like a storeroom on the ground floor and hard to locate. No AC but a lousy fan was kept and had a noise and the room window was not fully closed and faced the road :( - see photo attached. They Don’t reply to emails which I tried to contact so don’t be bothered and communication is a bit challenging sometimes on the reception the lady doesn’t understand English. Kitay-gorod is a good 15 min walk so metro and night bus (H1 route) to SVO/ sheremetyevo airport isn’t a much of a problem.

Misleading pictures of the premises great you as you check in to a place where beds are round (advertised as a double room but unless you’re under 5’4” you won’t fit. Bathrooms are full of rust, towels are more like sandpaper and no A/C or fan make the rooms Russian saunas. I never have harsh things to say about a place since I know lodging industry caters to all comfort levels however I’m not sure in who’s mind this is a 2 star ‘hotel’. The only good thing going for it is that it’s located close to Kitai Gorod. We tried to get a full refund since we had prepaid but they refused. That makes it even shaddier.