Donon's has an excellent cellar and
supplies a good dinner if ordered in advance. The price of the set meals
is very reasonable, about 2 roubles or 4s. 4d. per head; but the profits
are made on the wines, which are ridiculously expensive (owing to the
enormous duties). For instance, a bottle of _vin ordinaire_ costs 4
roubles 50 kopeks, or 9s. 8d., and no bottle of dry champagne can be had
for less than 10 roubles or 21s. 8d.; a whisky and soda is charged 1
rouble 50 kopeks, and in some places 2 roubles; a half bottle of wine is
always charged 50 kopeks more than the actual half bottle price.
The Hotel de France has a luncheon at 75 kopeks, or 1s. 6d., which is
very popular with the business community of St. Petersburg, and it is
crowded from 12.30 to 2 o'clock. The food is not high class but of a
good bourgeois description, and the place is kept by a Belgian named
Renault. It is one of the best hotels in St. Petersburg, and its
situation is suited to the purpose; but, as a matter of fact, there is
absolutely no first-class hotel either in St. Petersburg or Moscow, and
sanitation is a factor that has not yet penetrated into the Russian
intellect. A man who eats oysters in Russia, eats his own damnation, and
at a high price in both senses; they are both costly and poisonous in a
town where typhoid is easily contracted.
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