“Feel like serfs”: rich Russian tourists began to lure “izbing”

For tens of thousands of rubles a day, vacationers are allowed “haymaking, banetoping, wood cutting”

In pursuit of glamping (which means camping, but glamorous), another new concept has appeared in Russian tourism, successfully replacing our traditional holiday habits with hotel “stars” of Western invention. The hotel labeled “izbing” is a real Russian hut with three windows, where you can live for money. We asked the price of the hut in August.

The first and so far the most famous izbing hotel was opened by a resident of the ancient Volga city Ples, who calls himself a “wild master”, and his yard for five huts – the estate of this very wild master. Judging by the photo, everything is really like under serfdom there: on two hectares of land there are Russian handmade log huts in a semicircle with a fire pit in front of them, and behind them are fields and meadows that require peasant worries, right up to the blackening wall of a dense forest, where a hut on chicken legs is guessed. I’m calling the phone number provided.

– Hello, I have a vacation in August, but I don’t know what to do. It’s expensive and hot in Turkey and Egypt, I can’t afford the Maldives and the Emirates, I’m afraid to go to the Crimea, the Krasnodar Territory is sold out. So I think maybe beating will save me?

– Undoubtedly! – A female voice agrees, introducing itself as the manager of the isbing. – But there are only places for the end of August. Until the 25th, all five of our huts are occupied. And then a small hut is released.

– What does it mean?

– Suitable for four if it is two adults and their children. The hut has a toilet, shower and Wi-Fi.

– How much it costs?

– Small hut 24 thousand rubles a day, large – 29 thousand.

– What is this money for?

– Well, this is not just a hut for you, but a real one – a proper Russian log hut with three windows, furniture from old boats, self-woven tablecloths – everything is natural, breathes by itself and heals the inhabitants of the house. Near the Volga, the ancient city of Ples, where Levitan worked, his house-museum, a real Russian forest with mushrooms and goblin, in the evening gatherings in a clearing by the fire with a guitar. What else do you need?!

– Indeed… And what else is included in the cost of the hut?

– The main thing that is included is the opportunity to feel like a real peasant of the era of serfdom. These are haymaking, banetoping, wood cutting and other native Russian entertainments. Breakfast on the garden tables in the clearing – millet porridge from the oven and milk jug.

– What is haymaking? Slave labor for a gentleman?

– This is a haymaking workshop included in the price of your stay. It takes place on Chaliapin meadow. You will help local mowers and acquire an important practical skill. Melt a real Russian stove, arrange bathhouses in black and white. But first you have to chop wood. More gatherings around the fire and talking about the stars are included in the price. The bonfire is kindled by the staff of the hut every evening, as the territory of the hut is illuminated in order to minimize light pollution of the sky.

– How is that?

– We save electricity, that’s how. It also includes admiring the sunset to choose from – from the Volga embankment, from Cathedral Mountain or from Mount Levitan. And everything else for an additional fee.

– The rest is what?

– Walks around the neighborhood accompanied by a professional botanist, a master class in landscape painting at the Fragile Lava site from followers of Levitan’s style, a master class in smoking fish and then eating it in smokehouses on the Trading Square of Ples and evening mead in the Plesskaya glasshouse.

– Sounds tempting!

– Still would! If you decide to take your friends or colleagues and occupy all five huts at once, we will give you a discount – 135 thousand rubles per day for everything. Plus the possibility of events in the meadow in front of the huts. Just keep in mind that 100% prepayment and cash, otherwise times are turbulent now.

It’s hard to disagree with this. As well as with the fact that “izbing” is the most eloquent reflection of what is happening now in our tourism industry.