We stayed at the Irkutsk as a break in travelling from Moscow to Beijing on the Trans-Siberian. We were part of a tour group. The room on the right hand side of the 6th floor was in desperate need of refurbishment. The bathroom in particular was very small and in very poor condition. I asked for a change of room but was told initally that this could be done in about 4 hours. Later I was told the only way was to move to a better room at an additional cost of 2000 roubles. I refused to pay. Later that evening the door lock wouldn't open and I had to get the duty staff out to sort it. The reception staff were the most unhelpful I have encountered in five contitnents. In contrast the restaurant, bar and other public areas were good with helpful, courteous staff Overall this is not what I have come to expect from Best Western.

Very small rooms, very small beds, very bad noise insulation from neighboring rooms, bathroom was also very small and in a bad condition. All these on the 4th floor, where the rooms on the right as you exit the elevators are the only ones which seem not to have been renovated for a looong time. There are better rooms in the hotel, which must have been recently renovated, you can guess whether you are booked in one from the price. We paid 70EUR per room, the better ones started from 140EUR upwards. The lobby is nice and renovated as is the restaurant, we ended up spending our time in the lobby as the rooms were too depressing to spend any time in them. The better rooms should be good as we saw the Aeroflot crew staying there (8th and 9th floors). The location is good especially if you get a room with a view of the Angara river which is just across the street. Most of the staff do not speak English, but this is not a problem specific to this hotel...

I have been in Irkutsk several times the past year and have stayed at the Intourist hotel (Irkutsk Hotel) along the river across from the train station. The hotel is good and the people there are very friendly & helpful when needed. There is a bank machine here in the lobby that accepts ATM bank cards from Canada. They have worked everytime I used them and have not had any problems with them. There are banks in town that will exchange money or let you get a cash advance from a credit card also.

We ended up in this Intourist hotel as Intourist were the Russian correspondent of our UK agent through whom we booked our Transsiberian trip (Beijing - Ulan Baator - Irkutsk - Moscow). The hotel is a later 60s - early 70s building - which is fine in itself, the lobby has been redecorated, but why did they forget the rooms and the corridors? Already getting out of the lift on the floors the atmosphere changes - it is entirely run down, darkish... Then you get to the rooms and they are a disaster - small and without air-conditioning (and ours had not been opened for months), so teh air was hot and heavy. There is a fan which we kept on during the night. I am not big on aircon so that is not the issue - the furniture has not been changed for the last 30years and it shows, and the twin beds were tiny. But the real problem are the bathrooms - dark, no shower cabin, only a shower curtain over a stinking mat on the floor, I could not say whether they were clean or not as they were so tired. I really dreaded using the bathroom and the toilet. May be there are rooms which have been renovated - we inquired and were told that we could be upgraded for another USD100 per room but there was no assurance that the rooms would have been better, so we let it go. Thank God we stayed only for a night. Ultimately, that was probably interesting experience - a shadow from the past, if that is what one is looking for. There were lots of tourists groups which probably is the main client base. Btw - note that this hotel is referred to as hotel Irkutsk (ex Baikal) now - but that is the same one anyway.

We stayed in this hotel for 2 nights, which was enough!! It's on the outskirts of town, looking out over the Angara River. We had a room with a great view, but that was about it! The beds were really small and the decor very dated. I would recommend that anyone staying here asks for a rennovated room. The shower in our bathroom drained into a central drain in the floor by the sink and toilet, so if one person was cleaning their teeth while the other was in the shower they got very wet feet!!!