Not exactly the Hilton

The good news is that the elevators at the Hotel Tojikiston have stopped talking.

The bad news is that it's still the best place to stay in Dushanbe.

For the better part of the past two weeks (and I use the term "better" advisedly), the Hotel Tojikiston has been home.

Back in Central Asia to do some follow-up work with editors and publishers on newspaper self-sufficiency for the International Center for Journalists, I've done my best to deal with the hotel's idiosyncracies.

But the list of idiosyncracies is long, and the beds are short.

The hotel was constructed during the Brezhnev years of the Soviet era, which means that it is ugly. Concrete and boxy, it gives off a certain chill, even on the hottest Dushanbe afternoon.

And its quirks are many.

Start with the rooms, which have at least two more pieces of furniture than they need. My room has two narrow single beds; no springs, just a mattress on a board. Two bedside tables, a third table that sits in the middle of the room, an uncomfortable "easy" chair shoved up against the third table so that you couldn't sit in it even if you wanted to, a desk with a Korean TV on it, and a mini-refrigerator which is unplugged.

There's a balcony, of course. There's always a balcony. But it's on the street side of the building, so most nights have been interrupted by traffic or drunks going home.

One morning at 5 a.m., I was treated to a long drunken domestic dispute from the sidewalk below. Not exactly the same as waking up to the chirping of birds.

And then there's the matter of construction noise. The Hotel TJ, as I've taken to calling it, is undergoing major remodeling in hopes of attracting tourists. A third of the building is closed off, a scaffolding covers the facade, and the work with sledgehammers begins at 8 a.m.

By that hour, of course, I should be up and going. But the bathroom facilities don't exactly speed one along.

First time visitors find themselves looking for the shower.

Then they see the drain in the floor beside the toilet. It's probably very efficient in terms of use of available square footage, but it takes some getting used to.

Getting used to the elevators may be impossible.

When I stayed in the same place last fall, we were treated to the spooky talking elevators, which played schmaltzy Russian music and announced each floor in a resonant voice that sounded like someone had taken a correspondence course in broadcasting.

Today, the spooky voice is gone. There's a blank spot where the tape has been edited. The music plays, there is silence, then it resumes.

Trouble is, those of us who remember the bad old days still hear it in memory, and when the elevator doors open onto the cold, marble-tiled lobby, we mutter along: "Welcome to the Hotel Tojikiston."

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