This was for the first time I was in Kazakhstan and our company booked a standard room at the Alma-ata hotel as it was very close to our office - both centrally located
I had lived 5 years in Russia some time ago , so I knew that for 200USD I couldnt expect the same what you get in Europe in terms of quality and service.
The hotel was okay. I didnt like the bathroom, which was a bit too old style and which had a little door into the ventilation system, through which you could hear EVERYTHING happening in the neighbouring bathroom. My colleague once even suprised me as he opened that door from his bathroom and we had a little chat face to face through it...
In general, the hotel is really ok, if you are used to the fSU hotel standards, but I want to mention 3 points.
1. a very nice view of the mountains..
2. the 70s style hotel restaurant. I almost died of laughter when I found out that instead of renovating a typical soviet style restaurant and buying new hifi set, the hotel promotes it as something 'cool' to be back in USSR. The food for breakfast is actually VERY good with loads of fresh veggies etc. but the overall soviet concept wasnt that pleasant.
3. when returning from a very late night meeting with my colleague, we noted a couple of prostitutes passing by the reception. As we spoke loudly in a foreign language, we were spotted as their potential customers and about 1h later when we were falling asleep after a busy day, we both received a phonecall: Do you want a lady?... This was truly annoying, considering we had to wake up in 3 hours...