As the “Quarks-2018” Seminar is approaching, we would like to provide you with some useful details concerning the participation.
1. Arrival to the Seminar
The conference will take place on 27 May - 2 June near a small town of Valday, located 140km south-east from Velikiy Novgorod. The Seminar meetings will take place in the park-hotel «Valday» (Dom Otdikha Valday).
There are several options for reaching the Seminar’s site.
Public transport:
We suggest taking the fast Sapsan train from Moscow or St.Petersburg to UGLOVKA railway station, which is the nearest station to the site of the Seminar. Participants may buy tickets at the website of Russian Railways (https://pass.rzd.ru/main-pass/public/en). Departure stations are «MOSKVA OKTIABRSKAIA» or «SANKT-PETERBURG GLAVNY» with the arrival station of «UGLOVKA».
We recommend the following trains:
27 May Moscow (09:40) №760A - Uglovka (12:00)
Moscow (12:10) №764A - Uglovka (14:22)
Saint-Petersburg (08:21) №759A - Uglovka (10:01)
Saint-Petersburg (10:15) №761A - Uglovka (11:55)
2 June Bologoe-Moskovskoe (14:52) №765A - Moscow (16:58)
Bologoe-Moskovskoe (15:33) №766A - Saint-Petersburg (17:25)
We will organize a bus transfer for participants from Uglovka railway station on May 27 to the Seminar’s site. The transfer will be adjusted to the arrival time of the trains provided above. On June 2 there also will be a transfer to Bologoe railway station to meet the trains suggested above.
If you would like to arrive at other time or on other day, we suggest taking a taxi (for example, http://uglovskoe-taxi.ucoz.ru/, or 8(911)614-88-69; the approximate price is 600 Roubles for a trip Uglovka – Park-hotel Valday (Dom Otdikha Valday)).
Since Valday is almost equally far away from Moscow and St.Petersburg, it provides a wider range of options for arranging your journey. We recommend you to reserve some time and plan your arrival to either Moscow or St. Petersburg on May 26th or earlier, and departure on June 3rd or later. If you need a hotel in Moscow or St. Petersburg, you may use, for example, http://www.booking.com/.
Please note, that prices for train tickets are increasing with time, so we suggest arranging your journey well in advance.
Travelling by car:
You may find a detailed information about the hotel’s location on the website:
http://valdaydom.ru/informaciya/#kak
There is a paid parking at the site of the hotel (150 Roubles per day).
2. Accommodation in Valday
We assume that most of the participants will stay in the park-hotel «Valday». Note that the participants need not arrange any booking in this hotel themselves, as it is already done by the Organizing Committee.
Since we have a limited number of rooms at our disposal, we kindly ask all the participants to fill in the field of preferred accommodation type in the Registration form.
There are other hotels in Valday, and the participants are, of course, free to choose their lodging. We suggest considering AMAKS Valdaiskie Zori (http://valdai.amaks-hotels.ru, see it also at https://www.booking.com). If you are going to take care of your accommodation yourself, please, state it explicitly in the Registration form and notify us whether you plan to nevertheless have lunches at the site of the conference or not. You may find other hotels in Valday at booking.com, TripAdvisor and Travel.ru. Note that the car trip from the Valday town to the site of the Seminar takes around 20 minutes.
3. Prices
We have several lodging options in the park-hotel “Valday”:
- Single room (full board) - from 480 to 570 Euro
- 1 bed in a shared room (full board) - from 240 to 390 Euro
- Double room (full board) - from 510 to 630 Euro
- Cottage (2 adults (+1 child),full board) – from 1020 (+420) Euro
Full board includes 6 nights in the «Valday» hotel with breakfast, lunch and dinner. For shorter/longer stay, the prices reduce/increase proportionally. Unless other options are requested, we assume that the participants will be accommodated in a shared room, participants with an accompanying person – in a double room.
The exact prices for accommodation will be announced in April.
Credit cards are accepted at the hotel, while the conference fee should be paid in cash.
4. Visa
We kindly ask all participants who need a visa to follow the guidelines given at the website of the Seminar https://q2018.inr.ac.ru/event/1/page/8-visa-information. We strongly recommend starting the application for visa at your earliest convenience. If you do not need visa, we kindly ask you to let us know.
5. Preparations and work of the seminar
Each day, except for the days of arrival and departure, there will be one plenary session and three sections. On the excursion day, only section talks are planned.
6. Money
Money exchange (US dollars and Euro) is possible in various banks in Moscow and St. Petersburg. We strongly suggest exchanging your money before setting off to Valday. Though currencies other than US dollars and Euro can be exchanged in most of the banks, the rates may be unfavourable. We assume that the conference fee is to be paid in Euro. However, the conference fee may also be paid in USD or Roubles according to the exchange rates of the Central Bank of Russia on May 27th. For the conference fee payment, we do not accept credit cards or traveller's checks. For the accommodation fee, the hotel accepts credit cards.
7. Weather
Usually, the weather at the end of May - the beginning of June is warm (+15 to +20 degrees Celsius), but some cool (+10) and rainy days are still possible. It may be windy at a daytime and quite chilly during the night. You can find a detailed weather forecast for Valday at the Gismeteo website (https://www.gismeteo.ru/): weather in Valday. Please note, that there might be mosquitos and mites at this time of the year since the hotel is situated on the shore of Lake Uzhin and there are plenty of parks on the territory of the hotel.
8. Social program
Unfortunately, due to a busy scientific program, we had to cancel all-day excursion to Veliky Novgorod. As an alternative, we plan to visit Valday Iversky Monastery, a picturesque place 40 km away from the site of the conference. We also suggest a short excursion to Stalin’s dacha which is situated at the territory of the park-hotel Valday. In the mid of the Seminar, we will have a traditional conference dinner.
