The Spasskaya wins on entertainment, amenities and location and 9th-floor rooms have fine views towards the kremlin. Standard rooms don’t hide their Soviet pedigree but are larger and more pleasant than many equivalents elsewhere.
Neat, clean dorm beds above the train station’s left-luggage section. Six-hour stays cost half the rate.
Central but institutional and often full of travelling bureaucrats.
Popular with local school groups, the cheapest rooms have new doors hiding ragged old rooms. For now the communal toilets offer only the barest minimum of privacy, but major reconstruction is under way. Four storeys but no lift.
With tirelessly helpful multilingual staff and a super-central location, this very comfortable boutique hotel is Vologda’s top choice even if the crystal lamps, plush fabrics and pseudo-antique walnut-inlay furniture are more showy than classy.
Behind what appears to be a neatly modernised facade beats a very Soviet heart with disdainful front-desk staff and (much jollier) floor ladies guarding gloomy, ageing corridors. Rooms are a mixed bag.
Neutrally modern rooms are in the style of an underdecorated chain hotel, but the sauna–gym complex (R1000 per hour extra) is impressive and the restaurant’s rather grand. Wi-fi and breakfast are included.
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