Alternative Lodging for 2008

As much as we love the Hotel Cheremosh, there are alternatives in the region, particularly if we have a team focusing their time at the camp or if we send a team or two up to the mountains.

In Bulany, a village on the highway about 8 or 10 miles outside Chernivtsi and about 5 miles from the camp, there is the Bukovina Star Hotel.

This hotel is owned by the local rich businessman and is very modern inside. It's on the same scale as the hotel in Frankfurt that we have stayed at before. While it doesn't have wireless internet in the rooms like the one in Frankfurt it does have something the other does not — air conditioning.

For a higher price they also have first class rooms and apartments for 300 and 400 Grivna — $60 and $80 a night.

The shower even has a shower door and it's a larger opening than the tiny one at the Prosolok Hotel we use in Kiev.

Rates are 150 Grivnas for a one person room and 180 Grivna for a two person room. At the current exchange rates that's just $30 and $36 a room, or $15 and $18 a person per night. This is cheaper than the Cheremosh, and like the Cheremosh the prices include breakfast in the restaurant on site.

There's also a small amusement park across the street and just down the street is a 24-hour supermarket.

The same man also owns the Sun Valley resort just down the lane from the camp.

They have a number of modern high end cabins (the president of Ukraine has stayed there). Single room rates are 180 Grivna, First Class (3 people) are 400 Grivna and Business class - 250 Grivna. (Divide by 5 to get the amount in dollars).

It's more, but not that much more and anyone staying there could literally walk to the church camp. The two properties are neighbors.

On Friday Wally and I went to the regional tourism office near the university and talked with the staff there. We found out that there are lodging facilities in two of the mountain towns where there are Baptist churches.

In Vizinecha (bad spelling) there is the Nimchik lodge which looks like a modern establishment. Cost is $38 per person per night and that includes breakfast. (There is also whitewater rafting on the Cheremosh River at $34 a person).

In Putila, the village farthest from Chernivtsi there is a bed and breakfast inn that can host 8 people in presumably four rooms at $10 per person per day and that price includes meals. The house is relatively new construction. The bathroom is indoors with a modern toilet, but it is shared.