Inexpensive Hotels in Ukraine

Although Ukraine has been much in the news lately, it continues to be a place with reasonable prices for the budget traveller. This is particularly the case when it comes to lodging, a big component of the budget for most voyagers.

In the capital Kiev, a search on www.hotels.com for two days late in May, after the scheduled presidential election, revealed that the Hotel Ukraine, a large Soviet-era hotel overlooking the city's famed Maidan is renting single rooms for just $43 a night. The hotel has air-conditioned rooms, a necessity for the city's hot summers.Even less costly is another large hotel that looks as if it were built in Soviet times, the Slavutych, where a room for these dates costs just $17. Be aware, though, that it is on the east bank of the Dnieper River, not downtown.

I was not able to find the Rus, a hotel similar to but less central than the Ukraine, where I stayed in 2010 on the hotels.com Website this time. Then I payed about $65 a night for an air-conditioned room with minibar and a great breakfast buffet. The staff were helpful and English-speaking.

In Slovyansk in the far northeast of the country which has suffered some unrest, you can still get a room at the Taler Hotel downtown for just $23 Canadian a night, according to a report today in the Toronto Star (www.thestar.com.) The correspondent says the hotel boasts a brew pub with decent food and also, to his chagrin, a bowling alley right above his room.

On the other side of the country in Lviv, a city noted for its Hapsburg-era architecture and pro-western outlook, a room at the three star Leotel Hotel in late May goes for just $28 on hotels.com.

Below is an image taken from the balcony near my room at the Hotel Rus, of surrounding buildings in Kiev.