... in response to Apartment in Moscow, posted by KharkovDelight on Mar 22, 2002I would like to describe you the situation with renting of appartments in Moscow.
There are only few companies which give in rent appartments on a daily/weekly basis. One month is considered as "weekly", not "long-terms". These companies have very limited amount of flats, all of them in the center of Moscow or close to it, they charge $60+ per day and have lots of clients. On the other hand there is a lot of agencies who offer appartments on a long-term basis. If you open the Moscow newspaper you'll see many offers of 1-room appartments for $200 per month. Some of my friends wanted to rent an appartment for this price but failed. The called but it was agencies who told them something like this: "Yes, we had this appartment but it has already gone. You can come to us, pay for our services (one month rent) and we'll try to find an appartment for you in some time". So I guess such price is just not real. Appartments near the metro stations are even more expensive. $300 for 1-room appartment is a more real price but if you rent it through the agency you need to pay $300 to the agency for services.
At the same time in summer very many people live in the country houses and would be happy to get money for their free appartments. The problem is that they will probably trust the American man but if they realize there will be girls there they will not give it in rent to you. There is a big difference between appartments "for rent" and appartments "where people live" (and have valuable things).
I can ask my friends about the appartment for you in summer but I think I'll need some more detailed info. You may understand that I just don't want to bear responsibility neither before my friends nor you if something goes wrong.
E-mail me if I can be of the assistance.
Regards,
Tootsie