Golden Valley Hotel

10 Ilyicha Street, Akademogorodok, Novosibirsk, +7 383 330 36 09, gold-valley.ru/?lang=en 

So far the only hotel in Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk's educational and scientific satellite community. Its name in Russian is 'Zolotaya Dolina', with locals quite often referring to it as 'ZD'. 

The Golden Valley is ideally located for more than 20 research institutes and the House of Scientists which are all in walking distance. Ob sea beach on the bank of the reservoir filled in 1959 is also just a walk away through some stunningly beautiful pine and birth tree forests. 

Unpretentious, The Golden Valley hotel offers ‘an excellent possibility for inexpensive but comfortable shelter for travellers’.  

The hotel says they 'take into account the life-style peculiarity of all our guests - scientists, businessmen, tourists and holiday-makers' - by which we know what they mean. The hotel has a restaurant with a bar and summer terrace, wi-fi which is not always reliable, ATMs, train and air tickets office and souvenir shops. The staff speaks basic English. 

Where it claims to be ‘one of the most comfortable hotels of Siberia’, you might want to take this with a little scientific license, but it is the place to stay if you want to visit one of the most intriguing towns in Russia with perhaps more IQ per square kilometre than anywhere from the Baltic to the Pacific.