Riverside Hostel

location, a few walk to nevsky avenue and close to palace square

the worst part is the bathroom & toilet

Location is marvellous, you can reach the major SPb attractions on foot easily, I would say it's one of the best you get for this money. They also allow you to storage your luggage in lockers before/after check-out without any problems, which is great. Toilet was ok.

The staff didn't speak almost any English, even though they claim they do in the advertisment, but with some effort you manage to arrange everything. Most of them are not very friendly though. Be aware that they make you write short-time Short-Term (Vacation) Rental Lease Agreement - in Russian Cyrlic (!), which I don't understand and have only realised later (when I wanted to get an english version, I was presented with a house rules :) ). This means (legal consequense is) that are not responsible if anything gets stolen in your room (I would honestly say this is not very probable though). This is common for the properties without a 'hotel licence', I hear. Wi-Fi was quite bad. When taking a bath, hot water comes only after a long while, which is not very pleasant.

One thing that helped...the location was very central. You can walk to almost everything (I just took public transport to get to Peterhof). There are plenty of restaurants and fast food around the area. The bathroom on the right was clean. While you are sitting in the toilet read the sign in front of you, I'm sorry I didn't take a picture of it. It was hilarious but I'm sure the owner didn't mean it to be. All it says is...don't flush the toilet paper down the toilet...but what it says in English is quite funny. The bathroom on the left had moldy shower.

From the map, I knew how to get to the street (embankment). I just didn't know which building it was in since the buildings don't have numbers (or at least, I could not find the number). In order to enter, you have to get inside a gate and walk across a courtyard. Once you check in you will be given 2 codes, a key and a chip: 1 code to enter the gate, 1 code to enter the building, a chip to enter the hostel, and a key to your room. The problem was neither of the receptionists spoke English and the signs were written in Russian so it was difficult to figure out what the numbers were and what the chip was for. Actually, don't even try to communicate because you'll just get frustrated. If you want directions, just google it on google maps. Recommendations? forget it...just google everything.