Instant coffee…ugh…

For those who are not quite right in the morning until they have had their cup of coffee, keep in mind that Kazaks drink instant. I have yet to see a place to get a proper cup of coffee, never mind the mind-numbing combinations you can get at your local Starbucks (there aren’t any in Petro…in case you thought otherwise…no Dunkins, no Tim Horton’s, no coffee shops that I’ve been able to find).

The restaurant at the Hotel Skif will serve you a coffee in the morning (for free, breakfast is included) but it will definitely be instant. We had been forewarned about this travesty so I brought a pound of ground coffee with me and an REI French press mug. Add to the portable coffee kit a Bodum travel kettle and you are good to go. The one mistake we made was the kettle is not dual voltage so I had to also bring a 2000W transformer with us. A bit of additional searching in the Internet just now came up with dual voltage options which is the better path to take.

So plan ahead and you can get a good cup of coffee in Petro despite the best efforts of the locals.