Part of the "Ugly Disclaimers" series
[SCHEDULED FOR UPDATE]
Reserving my Ovchinnikovskaya Quay studio
(Some notes to avoid misunderstandings and disappointments)If you want your reservation request to be taken seriously, explain why you are visiting Moscow. Based on your explanation I will pencil you in. In my experience people who are "just thinking" of going to Russia will not come in 80% of cases, thus my insistence on there being a solid reason. Further, with there being so many positive reasons to stay away, your explanation needs to be fairly strong.
By "penciling in" I mean that I will make every effort to keep the place for you. I will not, however, be under an obligation to do that. To what extend I will go depends on your prior Russian travel history, the nature of your visit, and my subjective and politically incorrect (thank heaven PC hasn't yet made it here yet) assessment of your writing style, facial features, the aura around your head and what not. Once a year I may have to move a "penciled in" guest staying for two nights elsewhere to accommodate a two week paid up guest. On the positive side, I have not yet left anyone on the street or in the position of having no choice but to check into an expensive hotel.
If being "penciled in" is not enough, I recommend making a deposit. The deposit for two nights will keep the place for you. No cancellations from me, no substitutions. This deposit ($110US), however, is not refundable.
Don't confuse deposit with pre-payment. Pre-payments are refundable. That is, if you rent from me for a week and pay $420 and then cancel, $120 is mine, and the rest is yours.
Makes sense?
As to the method of payment, please DO NOT use Western Union. A trip to the bank, filling out a rather complex form in two copies, standing in line for an hour (remember that I am in Russia!) etc. do not contribute to my sense of well-being. And the latter is one of the main factors that determine the quality of service you are likely to receive. Send a regular cheque to my bank in London, Ontario. Reservation is accepted the moment you tell me the cheque is on its way. I have not been purposely misinformed (screwed) and thus will still take your word.
Do not use PayPal or similar systems. There is a serious mismatch between their interface and the workings of the space between my ears.
DO NOT SEND .BMP COPIES OF YOUR AIRPLANE TICKETS UNLESS YOU ARE OUT TO SABOTAGE MY MAILBOX AND SEE JUST HOW FAR I CAN GO IN REGRETTING MY MEMBERSHIP IN THE HUMAN RACE. ATTACHMENTS ARE ESPECIALLY ANNOYING WHEN I SIT AT MY "DACHA", WHICH IS CONNECTED TO THE CIVILIZED WORLD BY A WEAK AND ILLEGAL RADIO LINK.
Once I receive a payment, your reservation is carved in stone. For me to cancel your reservation would require truly extraordinary circumstances, and it will remain my responsibility to find alternative and satisfactory accommodation arrangements.
Did I say "carved in stone"? Close, but not quite.... Suppose you reserve the place for a night and then someone wants it for a month, which is infinitely more convenient and profitable for me. Then I will help you, at my expense, find equivalent accommodation in the unlikely event this happens. "At my expense" refers to "help", not "accommodation". You may suffer a minor inconvenience but certainly no extra expense. If you continue to puff I may not charge you for the ride from the airport or in some other way make my apology tangible.
The above situation happened twice in the last three years, and both times was easily and happily resolved. [Except with a French couple but these are not easy clients, these people - see my Prejudices page.]
If you cannot easily make a payment, or do not wish to do so, I will reserve the place for you once you have your tickets AND your visa. Especially your visa. The single most common reason why people don't show up is their failure to get Russian visas. Or the failure of Russian authorities to issue visas. (Anybody complaining about Russian visa policies is invited to impersonate a Russian wishing to get a visa to your country.)
..Where was I? Yes, your visa. Till you have your visa you are merely penciled in, meaning that I am aware you are coming and will try to keep the place available, but certainly will not apply heroic measures to be able to accommodate you. Sorry folks, in 2/3 of cases your plans will not unfold as you said they would till the point you get your visa. After you do I will indeed take you seriously.
(Another side remark. The rules are changing and I strongly urge you not to get creative in your pursuit of Russian visas. The biggest and most professional visa sponsor is Intel Ltd., and I suggest you write them to visa@intelservice.ru with your visa questions, and faithfully follow their directions.)
Please note that your ticket by itself will not convince me you'll arrive. Visa is the common bottleneck. Get your visa, and I am at your service. Before you get it you are considered as just an inquiry.
A couple of requests.
- Do not send me scanned .bmp copies of your tickets. Or 1.5bm photos of yourself, your family, friends, pets and what not. Overloaded computer, rural telephone lines, and occasionally the need to ride a horse to the nearest town at minus 30C to download e-mails contribute to my annoyance with high-volume low-value information.
- Do not overplan. There is a type who places a reservation two years ahead of time, then keeps on writing to check that the arrangement is in force. This type of planning contributes to the administrative overload on my end, and I start hating e-mails.
- If you are poor, don't engage into lengthy correspondence trying to gain a few bucks' savings. Ultimately somebody will pay for this unnecessary administrative work. I will do my best for this someone to be you. If you are poor, contact me a couple of days before coming, announce the extend of your poverty, and I'll offer you an alternative to the park bench. No one of those who contacted me was yet was left out on the street. [see Backpaker Accommodation in Moscow]
- ...
Finally, I hope that the above, as rude as it may appear to some, will help others in effectively and pleasantly dealing with me and perhaps other operators.
MORE SOON
Let this recent letter of complaint serve as an example. My comments are in square brackets.
...I booked an appartment near the red square through the "website of ""uncle Pasha""
This person confirmed our three days stay [At that point I penciled him in and sent a note saying "the worst case scenario is that I take the time and effort, at no charge to you, to find alternative accommodation for you" - pv] , we would fax him our visas as soon as we got them to prove we were actually coming.( we immediately send him throught e-mail a copy of our airplane tickets). [In .bmp, so I killed it without downloading, and even that was not easy.]
Then two weeks later as we asked him for a fax number to send the visa copies this Pasha literally wrote "" oops, I already booked the appartment for that time""...... [A misquote: the spelling error is that of the author of the complaint, not me. And I offered help in finding a suitable alternative. I made clear, when penciling him in, that a cancellation was possible. Please note "two weeks later" above. - pv]
We were really furious about this: This is not the way I like to do business. [People who indeed are in business would understand the situation. The shrewder ones would make me feel guilty, if not of failing to fulfill my obligation, then of disappointing their expectations, thus getting a preferential treatment. See Preferred Clients and Our Prejudices. - pv] Needless to say We will never do business again with a person who cannot be trusted and is rude on top of it. [While I understand that certain clients expect the world to rotate around them, and any deviation from this course, no matter how innocent, and what effort is made to compensate for it, is an offence, the accusation of rudeness truly puzzles me. - pv]
I have not heard your name before but if this person runs your appartment-hire business for you I would advise you to look out for someone else.[name withheld by me - pv]