Hotel Metropol Moscow

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Hotel Metropol Moscow, or Metropol, is a historic Art Nouveau hotel in central Moscow, Russia. Construction ran from 1899 to 1907, and it is the largest surviving Moscow hotel built before the 1917 Russian Revolution.

The land for the hotel was assembled in 1898 by Savva Mamontov and Petersburg Insurance. Mamontov hired Lev Kekushev to lead the project, but he was jailed for fraud and the project was taken over by the insurance company. In 1901, the top part of the building burned down and had to be rebuilt in reinforced concrete. Architects William Walcot and Lev Kekushev, with engineer Vladimir Shukhov, designed the hotel. Artists contributed to its decoration, including Mikhail Vrubel, who created the Princess of Dreams mosaic panel, Alexander Golovin with ceramic panels, and Nikolai Andreyev with plaster friezes. The hotel opened in 1907.

The Metropol’s design stands out for its solid, massed form that doesn’t rely on classical columns; texture and material play a key role. The ground floor features an arcade with stone facing, while upper floors have inset windows without heavy frames.

In 1918 the Bolsheviks nationalized the hotel, renaming it the Second House of Soviets. It housed government offices and living quarters before returning to hotel use in the 1930s. From 1986 to 1991 it was thoroughly restored as part of a Soviet-Finnish trade program.

Since 2012 the Metropol has been owned by Alexander Klyachin, who also runs the Azimut Hotels chain. By 2022 the hotel offered 365 rooms, each with its own unique layout and décor.

Notable stories: Canadian Aggie Kukulowicz stayed there while negotiating the 1972 Summit Series. The hotel is the setting of Amor Towles’s novel A Gentleman in Moscow. During World War II, from 1941 to 1945, American and British war correspondents based in Moscow stayed at the Metropol and faced censorship battles, a tale explored in Alan Philps’s book The Red Hotel.