In conspicuous contrast to its natural setting the architectural facade of the city is ugly and quite run-down. A dreary place, Petropavlovsk resembles all Soviet cities with its dilapidated high-rise apartment buildings, but lacks the redeeming charm of many old Russian towns. Not only from outside look all the buildings identical. All apartments inside the buildings have the same size too, no matter how many persons belong to the family. These accommodations are actually already to small for an average family consisting of 4 persons.
Even ten years after Perestroyka the electrical power outage or discontinuation in water supply are still common in Petropavlovsk. The hotels in the city are generally overpriced for the offered quality. Even in the middle class hotels having warm water at least once at the day is happenstance. Thus I was glad to find a full furnished private apartment for my several stays in Petropavlovsk.
On the other hand the supply situation in Petropavlovsk is very good. You can buy there almost all things you need. Even the imported southern fruits are comparing to Germany quite cheap. The biggest price difference exists by the local produced seafood, like caviar, salmon and other fish, or crabs. They were so incredible cheap, that I've scarcely eaten anything else during my stay in Kamchatka. In the long run it was too much seafood for me: someday does even caviar taste no more so good.
