apartment in St. Petersburg from mid-July to end of August?

[Margaret Anne Samu]

For finding an apartment in St. P, I highly recommend Irina Borisova (Web site  http://www.introbyirina.com/index.html  ).
She specializes in modest apartments suitable for scholars and students rather than business people on expense accounts. The apartments are well maintained, have facilities for foreign visitors (Internet, water filters, sometimes microwaves, etc.) but not evrostandard remont (no saunas). 

She works with an number of apartment owners whom she knows well and serves as an agent (those apts are on her Web site) but she also looks through the St. P classified ads for apartments and acts as an intermediary between you and the owner. She has her own standard lease (in Russian and English) that you and the owner sign, and she backs it up if the owner decides to change the terms unexpectedly. For example, partway through my Fulbright stay in St. P in 2007-8, the owner found out that rents in our neighborhood had increased and decided it was only fair to demand a higher rent. Before things got ugly, Irina stepped in and explained that it was not possible according to the terms of the lease. 

I've recommended Irina offlist to several people who have written in asking for advice in recent years, and decided to mention her on the list because there have been so many questions about St. Petersburg housing.

Best wishes to all travelers!
Margaret

======================
Margaret Samu
Postdoctoral Fellow
Nineteenth-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY  10028-0198
212-396-5308

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