I traveled to Transnistria on Jan. 19, 2009 with purpose of visiting distant relatives living in Tiraspol. The city has totally three hotels with Timoty being the newest one (since 2001). This hotel has a non-functioning web site for photo or information and no staff seems to speak English. With my little Russian conversation capability I made 5 nights reservation. The first impression when I arrive at Timoty is that this is a facility for military use since most people in and out were in military uniforms. My room is tiny ($110/night) with a twin size bed. I asked for a bigger sized room but was told the hotel has been totally booked. The first thing I noticed that did not work was toilet flush. I called for service but with my broken Russian they did not understand me and did not want to take a look either. I was glad that the wired Internet connection works well so I made several phone calls back to the States. The hotel has a restaurant facility but it was cold in there and there was no menu available to look at so I ate at near by neighborhood. Somehow the hotel decided to shut down the heater after night fall. The outside temperature is -4C and I think in my room it was about 10C that night. Since there were no one on duty at the front desk. I decided that I'd better find another place the next morning. I complained about my experience at the hotel as the reason why I wanted to check out early. The answer from the staff, Tanya, is: "You will not find any place to stay in Tiraspol and no one will speak English to you". I guess that was the last draw that prompted me to write this review. I ended up staying at Lena's flat the rest of the week and it was cozy, comfortable and less money. My Tiraspol trip began with a bad Timoty Hotel experience but the town is just beautiful and people were very nice as well.