The denial of the misinforming about the Russian Humanitarian-Cultural center "Piligrim".
Piligrim
Piligrim at INFOPRO.SPB.SU
Tue Sep 4 06:50:44 UTC 2001
The denial of the misinforming about the Russian Humanitarian-Cultural center "Piligrim".
Dear Mrs.Nedoresow and Mrs.Nepomnyshaya,and all those madams and sirs who were under misapprehension after reading your e-mails from 12.06.01 and 26.07.01!
Due to the peculiarity of my job(almost all summer I spent in business trips)only a few days ago I have received information ,that our Humanitarian-Cultural center ,the head of which I happen to be,continues being in the center of attention and its activities was interpreted again as "inexperience".
After I read "A word of warning"written by Mrs.Nedoresow from 12.06.01 ,I have discussed it with my collegues and they advised me not to reply,because such an aggressive style is rather far from the principles and rules of a professional discussion.
Indeed,what a correctly thinking person will allow himself to call a whole nation incivilized or will seriously believe that in modern Russia"Tourist,especially an American tourist equals enemy".
And what about the description of Mrs.Nedoresow`s and her husband`s stay in Saint-Petersburg!This is a real thriller:"Saint-Petersburg proved to be a nightmare from start to finish┘."etc.
Dear Mrs.Nedoresow,due to my work I have to travel a lot and if I wished I could have compared with you in the genre of " a black nightmare"and write some sketches.For example,how I was robbed twice in my favourite London(once even at the 4-stars hotel )how in Rome my negotiations were wrecked with big losses for me because the telephone in the hotel was not working during all my stay(more than a week)┘.
But ,for the first,I have no time-alas!-(or maybe fortunately)for this fiction;and the second reason(though I,according to your logics, belong to one of those incivilized representatives of my country) is that I and my friends are enough educated to understand that all these separate facts don't allow us to consider that England is the land of thieves, or,for example ,think that Italians are the nation of idlers and etc.
In general,each educated and intelligent person can easily understand this and I am not going to be involved into a correspondence discussing why Mrs.Nedoresow hates my poor Russia so much.
But now,when the letter of Mrs.Nepomnyashaya appeared , again concerning the "Piligrim",I think myself obliged , as the head of the company,to answer in the essence.
Well,lets give up emotions and address to the facts:
-During the long period of time two of my employees corresponded with Mrs. Nedorezow concerning all details of her stay in Saint Petersburg.
- To the owner of the apartment which Madam Nedorezova wanted to rent, "Piligrim" had given the preliminary payment.
- Unfortunately, the owner of the apartment had to leave urgently for a long business trip and as a consequence of this , the contract with "Piligrim"was interrupted. (by the way, this, that is the truth, my employee has told you, instead of that you have composed for yourselves and others.)
- What happened is not so good, but, unfortunately, similar situations rather frequently meet in tourism (and not only in Russia).
- In such situations especially important is how the company, which, actually, negotiated with the client, behaves and reacts, because it is the only one responsible in such cases.
So, dear Mrs. Nedorezow, "Piligrim" made maximum possible in these conditions:
- You were offered in the shortest terms in June (it is , as you know, the high season in Saint Petersburg) another apartment in the centre of Saint Petersburg almost similar to the previous one.
- The apartment was offered for rent under the same price, as previous, but "Piligrim" , at a loss to itself, as a compensation has reduced your rent by 10 dollars per day.
- Besides,as a compensation , the car for a meeting at the railway station was given to you free-of-charge.
But this seemed not enough for you. In оrder to revenge for yards, dark ladders of St. Petersburg "The entry was dark and littered with trash,the stairs were in total disrepair and a safety hazard,the closet-sized elevator reeked of urine┘."you have decided to demand from "Piligrim" free-of-charge transfer to the railway station, and this, indeed, we didn't agree to give.
For such situations there is a good English expression"Too much┘."
Lets turn now to Mrs.Nepomnyashaya:
I appreciate,Cathy,that you "would be faster to accuse"us" of inexperience than of malice ordishonesty."
But I cant agree with your opinion about our"inexperience".
"Piligrim"has launched dozens of conferences during its 10 years of existence and we have received many warm words from your collegues in Germany,England ,Switzeland,Usa and etc.
In the application forms which we deliver to our participants we always exactly indicate all supposed conditions of accommodation , feeding and cultural program . As a rule, alternative variants are offered,so ,what you are writing in your e-mail"make sure exactly what you are paying for"is what we always do ask our customers to do. The prices which are offered by the "Piligrim", are much lower than the so-called "open" prices in hotels and cafes (For example, at our last conference in June, 2001 to participants were suggested the following prices in an operating time of the conference:
The Hotel "Sovietskaya" -a place in a DBL - 26 USA dollars per day(the "open" prices of hotel from 51 USA dollars and higher;
The Hotel " Vyborgskaya" -a place in a DBL- 10 USA dollars with the "open" prices of hotel from 20 dollars and higher).
What impressed me unpleasantly in your letter:
-Absolute absence of any facts (in Russia this refers to "slander")
- that you didn`t tell about your displeasures to me during your stay in Russia, and have preferred to make 2 years after and behind my back (in Russia this also refers as a negative word).
As you have left me in full bewilderment what was wrong during your stay in Russia, I have lifted correspondence with you for this period and have interrogated all employees who here served you.
What I have found out:
-Actually conference, in which you participated, passed in Moscow and St. Petersburg from May, 29 till June, 2, 1999.
- You asked " Piligrim"to send a visa invitation for you from May, 20 till June, 20, and we have made it.We made an act of Good will for you having done invitations for more days then the operating time of the conference was.
- "Piligrim" also has sent the invitation for your husband, having not any attitude to the conference.Besides,we did not take from him any registration fee.
- Because of our kind feelings to you, my employees took you and your husband shopping, typed on a computer (by the way, at night because days of work of conference are filled up to a limit) the hand-written text of your report. And there are a lot of such things to remind you, Cathy┘. The things, which none of the tourist companies would have done for you according to the formal rules. But we acted from the bottom of the heart┘
- Before your visit to Russia you have filled in the detailed application form where you pointed, what hotel you choose, the cultural program, whether you go to Moscow or not and so on.. And before arrival to Russia you exactly knew (we keep all correspondence) what you are paying for.
I think you as Mrs. Nedoresow have unexplained hatred to Russia, and( what is especially sad) to the attempts of the new civilized approach to the organization of cultural projects. May be you have a nostalgia on socialism when all in Russia was free-of-charge? In that case, as well as with Mrs. Nedorezow, " Piligrim"cant help you .
We cant - alas! - quickly repair all Russian yards and ladders. We cant also (and do not want) to take money from the tax-payers (that is the last from grandmothers, children, everyone to whom it is bad now in the country) on the edition of free-of-charge conferences.
I think, by the way, that in the nearest future in Russia will be ever less and less free-of-charge events┘
I apologize to everyone who had to read all this verbosity. I hope very much that I wouldn`t have to write on this topic anymore and we will correspond only concerning new conferences .
With best regards,
The director of Humanitarian-Cultural centre "Piligrim"
Sergeeva Galina Petrovna
From: Catharine Nepomnyashchy <cn29 at COLUMBIA.EDU>
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Date: Thursday, July 26, 2001, 7:34:08 PM
Subject: Moscow and St. Petersburg for the non-Russian
Files: <none>
--====----====----====----====----====----====----====----====----====----===--
I am jumping very belatedly into this discussion, despite the fact that
others have already pointed out that Alla Nedoresow's "mistake" was in the
choice of travel agent, because I believe that conferences for which
Piligrim does arrangements are periodically advertised on this listserve,
and I'd like to warn people again to be wary in their dealings with them.
I will say that, based on my own experience attending the Pushkin jubilee
two years ago, for which Piligrim did many, but not all of the
arrangements, I would be faster to accuse them of inexperience than of
malice or dishonesty. Still, if you choose to attend a conference in
which they are involved, make sure you know exactly what you are paying
for, and be ready to pay top dollar for extremely poor accomodations, etc.
In fact, I would suggest that if you choose to attend such a conference,
you bypass Piligrim completely and make your own reservations. On the
other hand, we did enjoy a wonderful trip to Mikhailovskoe arranged by
Piligrim, so they're not all bad. Cathy
On Tue, 12 Jun 2001, Alla Nedoresow wrote:
> A word of warning to anyone preparing to go to either Moscow or St. Petersburg without a reasonable command of Russian and/or very close Russian friends there. My husband and I have just returned from two of the most miserable weeks we've ever spent - anywhere. I speak Russian, he does not and that seems to make all the difference in the world. Tourist, especially American tourist, equals "enemy," thus anything goes, all manner of chicanery. The xenophobic "them" and "us" perspective ruled in Moscow from the airport and its taxi drivers, to the Kremlin and its ticket booths, and everything in between except for the lovely hotel, the Moscow Marriott Royal, in which we stayed thanks to my husband's Marriott points. St. Petersburg proved to be an nightmare from start to finish. The "humanitarian-cultural center" Piligrim that solicited my patronage on March 22 from a notice submitted to this listing:
>
> > I represent the Humanitarian-cultural center "Piligrim" based in
> > St.Petersburg. We are specializing in receiving groups and individual
> > tourists in St.Petersburg and can provide you with the required services
> at
> > considerable prices. As for accomodation we can offer private appartments,
> > hotels for students and rooms in St.Petersburg hotels (*** to *****).
> > You can advise us what amount of money you are ready to spend for your
> > acommodation and we can choose the suitable accomodation for you.
>
> started the ball rolling. I made a call to them from Moscow, a few days beforehand, to confirm our arrival in St. Petersburg. No mention was made at the time that "the suitable 'accomodation'" that we had chosen and for which we wired American cash to them as a deposit, alas, could not be rented to us because the owner (suddenly?) decided a longer-term rental would prove more profitable. The apartment on which we had agreed was five minutes walk from the train station. The apartment assigned to us was near the Neva and a good hike from any metro station. The entry was dark and littered with trash, the stairs were in total disrepair and a safety hazard, the closet-sized elevator reeked of urine - everyday during our week's stay there. When my husband mentioned our displeasure with the situation, he also remarked that at the end of our stay, we should not be charged for the ride back to the train station. We heard nothing more from this "humanitarian-cultural center" until t!
he day before our departure. At that time we were informed that "the manager would not let the driver" take us to the train station for free and were given the number of a taxi company. Nadia left the entire task of making the arrangements to us/me after stating some "agreed-upon fee" that proved entirely fictitious, and not in our favor, either! The farce continued up to and including the taxi ride arranged in St. Petersburg with Moscow Taxi to take us from the train station back to Sheremetevo. Theoretically a reputable taxi company, they too stated one fare and charged an entirely different, higher fare. Our sojourn at the airport needs no comment. It simply provided the expected, carnival conclusion to the grotesque nightmare of the preceding two weeks.
>
> Once again, I share this experience in order to forewarn those planning to set off to Russia on their own for the first time. If you have any illusions that you're going to a civilized country, I would like to disabuse you of them. In what western nation can "individual tourists" enjoy the experience of being ushered into the wrong apartment through trash and darkness, up broken stairs and a urine-scented lift? My husband was certainly impressed by all the new experiences Moscow and St. Petersburg afforded him. And for those imagining that this was my first time in Russia, you're sadly mistaken.
>
> Alla
>
> Alla Nedoresow
> 102 School Lane
> Trenton, NJ 08618-5021 USA
> alla-n at home.com
> +1 609 392-5231
mailto:Piligrim at infopro.spb.su
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
options, and more. Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
http://members.home.net/lists/seelangs/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
More information about the SEELANG
mailing list