Lesnoy Terem Astashovo Wood Palace Hotel

After our day touring northern Russia at Galich and Soligalich we were making our way to our hotel. Tony had recommended a restored Wood Palace hotel. To get there we had to detour of the main road at Chukhloma and drive for 30 kms on gravel roads to get to the remote site.

We reached about 630pm just as it was getting dark, passing thru several abandoned villages and churches.

Gravel Roads

Logging Truck

Village Church

Tractor

We had no reservations and as it was low season we had the whole mansion to ourselves and could pick any room. The highest was 6000 Rub ($120 Cad), while most others were 4000-4500 Rub ($80-90 Cad) with ensuites or shared bathrooms.

This was a turn of the century wood palace built by a local peasant. More details on his story are here

https://www.rbth.com//special_projects/discovering_russia_1/2016/07/01/the-terem-at-astashovo-grand-dacha-in-the-chukhloma-forests_608137

The current owners have spent the last several years restoring. Tomorrow we would be going to an unrestored wood palace where a local still lives to see how it would have originally looked. The rooms at this hotel were comfortably restored and quite cheap compared to this style and quality in other countries.

The room I ended up taking was on the upper floor with ensuite for 4500 Rub ($90 Cad). There was no tv but we had good wifi.

Andrei the manager speaks decent English and said one night was not enough and that there are recreational activities around. We didnt plan and didnt have the time. He suggested a 7km walking trail in the morning as well as the second wood palace which I wanted to goto.

The staff prepares very nice homemade style cooking. For breakfast there was a barley drink with berries. The night before I had another berry drink with real floating berries. In the morning I could appreciate more of the house in the daylight. The configuration is a bit of a maze and easy to get lost.

In the morning we started the 7km trek but I decided against it after 1km. It was too muddy and hard to traverse. As well we would have to do all this walking to get to the run down wood palace so why do all this walking now when we had to do it again to actually see something other than trees.

See also vlog of visit - https://youtu.be/CzwQo_mxOaU