Moscow Luggage Storage Facilities Are Backpacker Unfriendly

First, let's define a cloakroom on a train station in Russia. It is not a cloakroom most of the foreigners are used to see. It is a huge room with shelves, where only the guardian has access. You hand your luggage to him, he places your luggage on a free shelf and gives you a ticket. To store one piece on luggage costs 170 Rubles. The price is not being counted by hours, but by days. Midnight is a starting point: if you get your luggage back after midnight the next day, you have to pay the fee for the new day. This is, however, not the most stupid rule which was mentioned before.

The Travelling Monkeys had a short stopover in Moscow before getting on their first train on the railway direction Siberia. They had around five hours to kill. The initial plan was to leave their luggage at the train station, but it didn't work out. They introduced the most stupid rule in the cloakroom, and Bimbino and Bambina were lucky to meet a jerk who was strictly following that stupid rule. The rule was as follows: "Every piece of luggage will be charged separately even if it is attached to the main bag."

A very unfriendly keeper welcomed the Travelling Monkeys with the phrase: "Beware, every piece of luggage will be charged separately even if it is attached to the main bag."
- "Ok! We have two backpacks. We just need to repack some stuff, and we'll leave them for a few hours." - Bimbino and Bambina saw their backpacks as two solid constructions. They couldn't understand what the keeper meant.
- "We want to leave these two bags, please."
- "Every piece of luggage will be charged separately even if it is attached to the main bag."
- "Great! We have two bags here, please."
- "Every piece of luggage will be charged separately even if it is attached to the main bag."
After hearing it for the third time, Bimbino and Bambina looked at their backpacks again and saw the attached parts, finally.
That meant for the tent, the sleeping bag, and the two camping mats attached to their backpacks the Travelling Monkeys had to pay extra, for each piece. It would have costed 170x6=1020 Rubles; they were not ready to pay that.

- "Are you serious? You gonna charge us 170 Rubles for each camping mat?" - Bambina asked.
- "Every piece of luggage will be charged separately even if it is attached to the main bag."
With "WTF?" question on their faces they left the cloakroom.

Beware, the cloakrooms in Moscow are backpacker unfriendly! However, the situation changes if you have a rain cover for your backpack which can cover the attached parts. Another idea to solve the issue could be buying a huge garbage bag and covering the backpack with it. However, the best solution would be to get rid of this stupid rule, wouldn't it?

Did you have such an experience somewhere?

The photos used in this post:
Title image: RIA Novosti - Ruslan Krivobok
1st image: InFocus Photography
2nd image: Vargo Online Shop