The decision to build Hotel Moskva (initially the name Mossovet Hotel was suggested) was made by the USSR government at the end of the 1920’s. The new hotel was thought to be a great symbol of socialist construction, a kind of antipode to such famous pre-revolutionary hotels as National and Metropol. Mossovet set an unprecedented task – to build a hotel with a capacity of one thousand in the very centre of the “proletarian capital” – in Okhotny Ryad.
The initial design of the hotel carried out by the young architects Oleg Stapran and Leonid Savelev, was fulfilled in a constructivist style and went clearly against the existing historical image of the area.
The hotel was built at a “shocking” rate. The first hotel complex built within the space of one year was pleasing to the eye, but… the country felt it was an empire and an empire required a different façade – monumental, with columns and statues. It was decided upon to look to Ancient Rome and Greece for designs which could be imitated and this was in fact the beginning of the “Stalinist Empire”.
In order to rectify the situation, the famous architect, Alexei Shchusev, whose creations were heavily influenced by the Italian school of architecture, was hired onto the project’s management team.
The academician Shchusev was considered to be one of the patriarchs of Russian architectural thought. Before the revolution he was philanthropised by the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna and he was an emperor himself. He built mansions for millionaires, churches such as the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent on Ordynka Street in Moscow. He advocated the “Russian Style” in which he created, for example, the Kazansky Railway Station. After the revolution Shchusev stated “I used to get on with popes, now I’ll get on with the Bolsheviks”. And this is exactly what happened – he was entrusted with the building of the Lenin Mausoleum. It was Shchusev who saved the Monument to Minin and Pozharsky on the Red Square from being destroyed by the Bolsheviks.
Being a connoisseur of both constructivism and classical style, Shchusev successfully reworked the décor of the future hotel and decorated the stern façades with column caps and tailpieces. The hotel building became less austere and more imperial; the façade facing Manezhnaya Square was decorated with a portico and two impressive asymmetric towers. Legend has it that each tower was an individual design and the architects submitted the drawings to Stalin for his approval, so that he would choose one of the two versions. Both drawings were on the same sheet of paper. However, Stalin placed his signature in the middle of the paper and it could not be told which design he had chosen. It was then decided to leave both towers – one on the right and the other on the left – even though they were not the same.
In building the hotel, the authorities decided on principle to avoid any help from abroad. At the beginning of 1935, construction was complete and the decorators began work. Shchusev, an admirer of Italian classicism, hired an entire team of architects to work on the external appearance of the doors, cornices, handles, elevator plaques and the arrangement of tables in the restaurants. 18 sets of furniture were created from metal and different types of wood – mahogany, walnut, pear wood, red beech and sycamore.
On December 20, 1935 Hotel Moskva opened its doors to its first guests. Housemaids and administrators turned into tour guides for eminent guests. A guestbook was started in the hotel. Everybody was welcome to criticise and praise Hotel Moskva, but not everybody was permitted to stay at the hotel. Workers and ordinary people were only able to stay if they were delegates of party congresses and they were very few in number.
The first phase of the hotel cost 45 million roubles – three times as expensive as initially planned. The cost of one square metre was 8,000 roubles. This was more than four month’s salary of the architect Shchusev. Single rooms cost from 15 to 50 roubles per night and double rooms from 40 to 60 roubles. Luxury rooms cost from 70 to 100 roubles per night. The average salary in the country at that time was 200-300 roubles per month.
The Second World War turned Hotel Moskva into a fortress defending the northern part of the Kremlin. It was the last air defence point before the Kremlin. The command stations of the anti-aircraft artillery regiment were located at the hotel. On the roof where, before the war, there had been a restaurant, the latest machineguns and anti-aircraft guns were installed. During the war, at the height of the attacks of the German air fleet, the great Soviet composer, Dmitry Shostakovich, stayed at Hotel Moskva. He had arrived in Moscow for the premiere of his famous Leningrad Symphony. During the entire war, Soviet military commanders, who were called to Stalin’s headquarters, stayed at the hotel. During the war the hotel’s gas and electricity supply was not suspended even for one day and the restaurant did not close, although food was served on a coupon basis – the country did not have enough provisions to go round.
Due to the onset of war, the construction of the second phase of the building along Ploshchad Revolyutsii and Teatralnaya Ploshchad was not carried out and only began in 1968. The hotel complex now included a 10-storey building facing Ploshchad Revolyutsii and a 6-storey building facing Teatralnaya Ploshchad. The second phase of the hotel was commissioned in 1977 for the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution. The hotel now occupied a whole quarter between Ploshchad Revolyutsii, Teatralnaya Ploshchad, Manezhnaya Square and Okhotny Ryad.
In 2002 the Moskva hotel complex was closed and work began on its complete reconstruction. It was decided to maintain the old façade, but modernise all interior equipment.
Some interesting facts about Hotel Moskva:
- Among the guests who have stayed at Hotel Moskva there are many world famous figures – the famous aircraft pilot Valery Chkalov, the great Second World War military commander Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the world’s first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the French physicist and chemist and Nobel laureate Frédéric Joliot-Curie, the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the actors Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni and Jean Marais. The last of the famous guests in the old building was Robert de Niro.
- In 1961 Gina Lollobrigida stayed at Hotel Moskva. At the same time, Elizabeth Taylor arrived in Russia. When she found out that Lollobrigida was staying at Moskva, Taylor said “Two stars cannot stay in the same hotel”. She went to stay at another hotel. But scandal flared again when at a reception with the Minister of Culture both actresses arrived wearing the same dress…
- Hotel Moskva has always been used by employees of the secret services for recruiting agents and for meetings with informants. Famous people who were under suspicion were sometimes invited to the hotel especially so that their private conversations could be overheard in rooms with “wires” set up in advance.
- Due to its proximity to the Kremlin the hotel was sometimes subject to great inconvenience. During the funerals of Soviet leaders, all guests were relocated to other hotels in the city because the funeral processions used to pass directly below the windows of Moskva.
- It is said that the silhouette of the hotel was purposefully placed on the best Soviet vodka, Stolichnaya, so that its consumers would subconsciously know that in Moscow they should only stay at that hotel on the label of their favourite drink. And before having their favourite drink in Hotel Moskva, guests were advised to write their room number on the soles of their boots, so that the maids would know where to “deliver” a wandering guest.
