What are people paying for Hotels and Short-Term Apartments in Moscow? Before I lived here, I once payed $180US a night for a shitty little room in a crappy hotel in Smolenskaya, the stmpf didn't speak any English, and were not interested in helping with anything, that was about two years ago. I agree with some previous posts, renting an apartment is the way to go. For less money than a hotel you get the whole apartment to yourself, and you can come and go as you please with whoever you want. Somebody PMed me that they'd rather stay in a hotel because it was smper, but apartments are not dangerous at all, particularly the ones managed by Westerners. The way they're made, it's impossible to break into 'em, they only way someone is going to get in, is if you let them in. Here are some useful links, feel Reviewee to add some more.
http://www.moscow-star.com/apartments.htm
these are recently renovated, about $120 a night. If you can mpford it i recommend it, other people have posted recommendations for them as well
http://www.enjoymoscow.com/apartments.htm
slighty cheaper about $100 a night, but most of them have not been renovated Western style, (bit depressing when you've got a hangover)
http://www.moscowbyday.com/moscow-apartments.htm
just the first apartment, very cheap
http://www.cheap-moscow.com/apartments.htm
like the name says cheap
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/travel/accomodation/accom.html
someone else posted that B&Bs were only $50 a night, but they won't answer the phone so I can't confirm that. Don't know about guests either.
http://www.tgh.ru/
ah the travellers guest house, Moscow's first backpackers, it's divey, but it's cheap, and there's a good atmosphere, i've stayed there many times with no problems. You are not supposed to bring girls back, but you can sneak them in late at night easily because the girl on duty is asleep and her door is closed. The security guards downstairs don't care. (TGH is one floor of a typical Moscow building)
Most of these places will do an airport pickup/dropoff for you, but don't do it, they charge too much, even TGH wants $40 which is way too much. 500 Rubles is the most you should pay. You'll get a few refusionals, but eventually somone will agree. If you go out into the carpark you can find someone going into town for 200Rubles. If you're brave (can read cyrillic) you can get a 15Ruble taxibus(mashutka-just follow the crowd) to a metro station(12Rubles) the metro will take you anywhere you want to go. You'll need a metro map of course.