Actually, none of the people in the picture are Alex or Natasha. They’re just some Russians who turned up at the house one day with booze and party shopping. If you like impromptu, this guest house is definitely for you.

Alex and Natasha’s place is a beautiful old (original) German house in the heart of Svetlogorsk. The luxe and less intimate hotels are in fact quite a step from the beach.

It’s a guest house so the company is, shall we say, mixed. The first week I was here there were aerodynamicists from Moscow attending a conference. (In Svetlogorsk? A likely story.)

For the record, I pay just 500 roubles a day here. Though Alex pulled me aside one day and said that if I bring a woman back it will be 1000 a day. Bring two women back, 1500. And so on. Well, I only had a very small room anyway.

Alex also rents out the whole house to to parties. There’s a communal kitchen and the garden is shaslik friendly. And while self-catering you can discover the local Prussian supermarkets. Though the facades have changed little since 1945, these days they mostly belong to the famous Russian ‘Produkti’ chain and sell instant pelmeni and Whiskas.

The guest house rooms are simple but spotless. That’s because a babushka from the sanatorium next door comes in and mops every day. Even so, few rooms have en-suite and the rest of the facilities are shared. If you attempt a shower late afternoon, you might find someone is defrosting the evening party fare.

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I thought it was the perfect writer’s location. Taking the laptop into the garden, I was reminded that Somerset Maugham used to write 2000 words in the summer house before breakfast. Trouble is, with Russians feeding you vodka and charcoal chicken wings, it’s a challenge to compose the odd coherent sentence.

(If you’d like to stay at Alex and Natasha’s, send me a mail.)