Vodka’s our favorite hooch, and Stoli’s our favorite vodka — but when it comes to promoting the brand in the United States, the Russians have been about as effective as their little Communist experiment back in the day.

In fact, here’s the story of their latest marketing Five Year Plan: They’ve had five unrelated ad campaigns over the past five years — and none of them bear repeating.

Brand Manager Adam Rosen explains: “We have to have an answer to the question, ‘Russian vodka. So what?’”

And their multimillion dollar answer to that question? This thing.

Don’t bother looking around the “Stoli Hotel” to find any content of interest; there’s nothing there, unless you don’t know how to make a vodka tonic. And the flirty virtual receptionists and bartenders don’t even strip to their undies — as you would expect from a site like this.

The Web site is actually tied to an event marketing campaign — a series of “pop-up” hotels in a small number of major cities, open for a month at a time.

The first was in L.A. in May; the other cities on the tour are New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. If folks in the other four cities are curious what to look forward to, here’s a description from the LA Daily News:

Have you heard about the Stoli Hotel? The latest temporary hot spot to hit Hollywood (on Ivar between Sunset and Hollywood boulevards) is a faux hotel, complete with doorman and check-in babes, VIP bedrooms and even a spa offering free services, all sponsored by Stolichnaya Vodka, promoting their new flavored spirits.

All during May, the parties are raging, from a GQ bash early on to Wednesday night’s Playboy party, a surreal blend of sultry centerfolds, burly bodyguards and even a tiny midget (who was not Verne Troyer) who spent most of the evening riding through the crush on the shoulders of his very large male companion…

…One bright-eyed male was overheard to comment, “There’s more silicone on display here than I’ve ever seen in my life!” And he wasn’t kidding.

Sounds OK, we guess. We like silicone as much as the next guy, after all.

Until you realize that Stoli has confessed it’s blown its “entire internet advertising budget” on this “traveling hotel” with lame Web sidekick.

So … let’s see. If all goes well, you boost Stoli sales in five cities with a total population of, say, 20 million — out of a total U.S. population of 300 million. The rest of us get to look at this.

If Stalin were still around, he’d send you dummies to a gulag somewhere.