Our hotel room at the nicest place in town. Cost: ~$30. The way things seem to work in Russia, there are just too many rules which often contradict each other. Example, I may not have to have registered because of a technicality - I never stayed in a city for more than 3 days. Erring on the side of lack of caution, I took some Russian friends' advice and never registered period. But lack of registration did turn out to be a Big Problem at the Hotel Artika in Murmansk. A nearly teary-eyed woman told us there was no chance we could stay in her hotel without a registration, and since registration offices are closed over the weekend, she figured we'd be sleeping outside tonight. After being denied a room, we embarked on a somewhat nervous 5-am walk (our 28 hour train ride got us in just a little after 4 am) in which Alison and I lamented that neither of us had valid registration and contemplated a cold and long "night" (it never gets dark at this time of year where we were above the 69th parallel) in some park most likely carpeted by tundra. The next hotel was happy to let us stay there, and in fact registered us in Murmansk gratis. Sweet. My tourbook said 24 Euros was the standard rate to have it done at a travel agency. That's Russia for you.