Gostinitsa Buryatiya

It is a very good hotel The easy check in support staff is nice and the interior is aesthetic

A very nice surprise in a remote location. When you see the building, you do not expect much… but management makes it excellent! Clean rooms for a jet lag sleep, a lot of amenities inside like pharmacy, souvenirs… Our best surprise was the restaurant. Local and international food, good quality ingredients, and then can handle special requests. Alina, the manager, made it work for us. Open, polite, fast. Excellent local vegetables, milk, beef, lamb… we were happy here.

The hotel is just excellent in terms of value for money. Although the building itself is a Soviet legacy, the management succeeded to refurbish the place quiet nicely. I loved the paintings on the walls and general design. While the rooms are not big, they are really cozy and comfortable. Also, the bathrooms are really spacious with great sanitary equipment. The location is as central as it gets, close to all the main attractions. The views from the top floor rooms are great. The breakfast was absolutely delicious with vast selection of various dishes at the buffet. We also appreciated the food at Chashka cafe very much. The “boozy” or Buryat dumplings were just excellent! The hotel is very clean. I liked the lobby, the halls and corridors very much - all the public spaces are well decorated and maintained. What I enjoyed very much is the service, which was just top notch. The receptionists were especially friendly and made us feel very welcomed. I urge you to opt for a more expensive deluxe room though, the cheaper room had walls decorated with plastic siding instead of plaster, which didn’t feel very pleasant from an ecological and fire safety point of view.

We stayed for two nights and really enjoyed all aspects of the hotel. The staff was wonderful, the rooms immaculate (when was the last time you were in a hotel and saw a bathtub you would consider soaking in?), the location couldn't be better (off the main streets so minimal traffic sounds. And the windows still can be opened for fresh Ulan-Ude air.||||Minus: The downstairs coffee shop area should be redesigned to be more inviting, relaxing spot and alternative to full breakfast. Right now it's just lobby furniture and a minimal coffee bar. Also, we wanted to tip the barrista, but there was no tip box, likely because the management doesn't allow it. Not good, management. You want the coffee shop to be friendly and personable, a place where people want to hang out. Change the furniture, add some more variety in foods, and put out a tip box.

At the end of the day, it's all about the comfort of the beds and I give high marks to Buryatia Hotel for delivering on that. Our room was clean and had a nice view. The hotel staff was pleasant and were kind enough to let us check out a little late. The breakfast had enough variety to be interesting and kept us fueled for our morning meetings. It's in a good location and within easy walking distance to places of interest as well as restaurants and grocery stores. The only downside was the room could become a little too stuffy (which was remedied by turning on the AC... at the end of November!)

Hotel Buryatia is a good hotel for a quick visit in Ulan-Ude. It is near the main square, main street, philharmonic, and theater. The room had air conditioning, a refrigerator, and a kettle (I had to ask for it). The hotel is quite tall so offers good views of the city. Their breakfast was also very good (try the kasha!). The staff speaks English, so if you don't speak Russian it's not a problem. It is also near several good grocery stores. ||The bathroom in my room was very small. This wouldn't have been a problem if the bathtub was properly separated from the rest of the bathroom by a working curtain. The one they had was not long enough to stretch the width of the bathtub so water kept splashing onto the mirror, and if I wasn't careful onto the toilet as well. ||You may experience difficulties if you are sensitive to light when you sleep. The curtains were too thin to block the light and the bed is near the window.

Despite the size of hotel and the gift shops in the lobby (which had some very interesting items for sale at reasonable prices) this is a pretty basic hotel. ||The bed was comfortable ... the room clean.||But ...||The bathroom amenities were quite basic (foil packet soaps ... almost impossible to open, even if you do want to use such low quality). ||The breakfast offerings were quite poor ... instant coffee packets.||Upgrading these items would make this hotel very good!

The hotel's location is good, it's close to Soviet square, Opera house and Arbat (Lenin) street. The standard room I had was smallish, had a view of Soviet square. The hotel breakfast was good. The receptionist, Sofia, was helpful. ||However, male restroom in the lobby was not clean.