Pravda: Obama To Stay At 13,000 Dollar Suite at Moscow Ritz-Carlton

This from Pravda:

Barack Obama to stay at 13,000-dollar luxury suite at Moscow's Ritz-Carlton Hotel (7/3/09 Pravda)

The article is actually a summary of the interview Obama gave to Itar-Tass news agency and Russia TV Channel, but the editor at Pravda was apparently more interested in speculating where Obama would stay in Moscow, hence the title.

Pravda has done some intelligence work:

"Most likely, the US President will stay in Moscow at Ritz-Carlton Hotel." Because..

"Ritz-Carlton has closed the booking for July 5-8, whereas Marriott does not seem to be taking any special preparations at the moment."

"If Obama chooses Ritz, he will be accommodated in a five-room Kremlin view luxury suite with huge panoramic windows." How nice.

"The presidential suite at Ritz-Carlton Hotel costs 430,000 rubles a night ($13,870). " So that's for the prez, and

"cheapest suite at the hotel costs 35,000 rubles a night ($1,129)." That's for the entourage.

I know and understand the argument that the president of the U.S. cannot just stay any cheapo hotel - there's prestige, there's security. Still, it would be refreshing to see the multimillionaire president cut back on luxury just a bit, a token gesture to save the US taxpayers' money in tough times would be just fine with me.

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