Russia's Metropol

In the late 1880s, Muscovites began calling the old Chelyshy hotel (named after its owners) the "Metropol." In Greek, the name means "mother-city, the main city of a state." At that time, the Chelyshev family decided to sell the hotel and adjacent baths. After several transactions, the St. Petersburg Insurance Company purchased the hotel for 1,158,000 rubles.

Then, as now, Moscow was experiencing a construction boom. The population was growing and so was the number of hotels. Given these realities, the St. Petersburg Insurance Company decided to build a grandiose hotel on the prime downtown site of the Chelyshy -- it was expected that it would also provide good advertising and exposure for the company.

In May of 1898, the company signed a lease agreement with a certain Northern Construction Society. The agreement required that the society rebuild the hotel, for which the St. Petersburg Insurance Society allocated 1.5 million rubles.

Given the head of the Construction Society, none doubted that the construction would meet international standards. The society was headed by the famous Russian railroad entrepreneur and art patron (patron of the Abramtsevo school), Savva Ivanovich Mamontov. Mamontov possessed uncommon energy, temperament and entrepreneurial spirit. He could juggle dozens of different projects, combining  purely practical undertakings like railway construction with a deep interest in the arts. It is not surprising, therefore, that Mamontov conceived of the hotel not just as a commercial venture, but one with unusual artistic and cultural opportunities.

Of course, from a business standpoint, the hotel was quite promising. It possessed a prime location downtown, next to Kitai-Gorod and the business section, combined with its location next to the two main theaters (the Bolshoy and the Maly). But Mamontov wanted to create here not just a luxurious hotel with a world-class restaurant. He also sought to build a grandiose cultural and leisure center, with a winter garden and other luxuries.

Builders started tearing down the old Chelyshy hotel shortly after the agreement was signed. The first new building was the hotel's arcade, erected parallel to the Kitai-Gorod wall, according to plans designed by architect Lev Kekushev, one of the then en vogue Moscow architects who had designed many mansion for rich Russian merchants and noblemen.

In parallel, the St. Petersburg Insurance Company unveiled a design contest for the hotel's facade. In May 1899 the jury announced its decision. First Prize went to a team of architects from the Northern Homebuilding Society, led by the same Lev Kekushev, who offered a pleasing combination of eclecticism and the new “style moderne." And yet, the entry that received fourth prize attracted wide attention for its novelty and simplicity of design. Named “Women's Head” and designed in the style of English decadence, it was created by the very talented Moscow architect William Walcot. Walcot’s paintings and fresh approach startled the jury which, being very conservative, could not accept such innovation.

One may suppose that Mamontov, an open-minded art patron, was seduced by Walcot's novelty. Whatever the internal politicking, Walcot’s design was eventually chosen for the facade.

William Walcot was born near Odessa in a settlement of German colonists which had been invited to Russia by Catherine the Great in the late 1700s. He graduated from one of the best Russian architectural schools -- the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Walcot then moved to Moscow and became famous in less than eight years. In 1905, he left Russia for England, where he redirected his artistic talents to painting. He died in 1943 in London.

In November 1898, the symbolic cornerstone of the future Metropol Hotel was laid. For the first few months, construction went ahead at full steam. Within a year, the arcade adjacent to the Kitai-Gorod was all but completed. Then disaster struck.

Savva Mamontov, mastermind of the Metropol, was arrested. Accused of misusing funds in a complex railway station deal, he was tried and convicted and ended up serving five months in jail. The investigation and trial had a negative impact on Mamontov’s health as well as on the construction of the hotel. The board of directors of the St. Petersburg Insurance Company -- deducing Mamontov’s impending insolvency -- annulled plans to build a cultural center attached to the hotel, instead building simply the hotel and restaurant, as this promised quicker financial returns.

In February 1890, Mamontov was released from jail to house arrest. Within a few months, his lawyer, the legendary Fyodor Plevako, "the fabulous spellbinder of the word," as he was called back then, succeeded in getting Mamontov acquitted of all the charges against him and restoring his reputation. But Mamontov was not the same: he was nearly broke and greatly in debt. Therefore, in 1891, the owners of Metropol severed their contract with Mamontov’s Northern Homebuilding Society and invited engineer P. Kazin to finish the project. By October 1901, the facade facing today's Teatralnaya Square was complete, as was the interior design of many rooms (overseen by architect Ivan Zholtovsky).

Yet the Metropol's trials were not over. It is hard to believe, but, on December 15, 1901, the nearly finished hotel fell victim to a dreadful fire which broke out the fifth floor of the section adjacent to the Kitai-Gorod wall. Soon the third and fourth were in flames. It took so much water to put out the fire that all of Teatralnaya square was covered with a thick layer of ice, created by the winter frost. Needless to say, the builders had to start anew. Six months later, in June 1902, construction work resumed. In 1903, builders created the glass cupolas, designed by the famous engineer Yevgeny Paton.

In early 1905, the city’s newspapers announced the Metropol’s opening, calling it a “Tower of Babylon” of the 20th century. Even in those times, the costs of construction of this “tower” was over seven million rubles.

The new hotel had what was then state-of-the-art equipment: electric elevators, hot water, refrigerators and a special ventilation system. The building was decorated with beautiful ceramic tableaux, sculptures and little towers. To stay in tune with the times, the builders wrote in tiles on the hotel's facade a quote of the then fashionable philosopher, Friedrich Nitzsche: "It is really bad! The same old story again! Once you have built a house, you notice that you have learned something which you should have known before building. So here it comes again, this ubiquitous ‘Too late!’ The melancholy of all things finished!"

Another of the Metropol’s artistic pearls is the famous ceramic panel, “The Princess of Dreams,” by the Russian painter Mikhail Vrubel and inspired by a famous play (La Princess lointaine) by French playwright Edmond Rostand. This ceramic panneau is flanked by several other ceramic panneaux created by the artist Alexander Golovin. The tiles and ceramics were meant to somehow replace the colors of nature for city dwellers.

This rich decor perfectly matched the sculptural frieze (“The Four Seasons”) by one of the best Russian sculptors, Nikolai Andreev. His sculpture features semi-nude figures, which drew the ire of the then notorious Orthodox priest Bukharev. The latter wrote an open letter to the newspaper Moskovskiye Vedomosti in January 1902, “The recent fire at the Metropol Hotel made me think of those bas-reliefs, showing ... mostly naked women ... Decent people regard the recent fire at the Metropol as God's punishment and injunction. The builders have decorated the house with inappropriate figures -- that is why the fire destroyed the house, devouring the millions spent on construction. Listen to reason, builders, learn the lessons from the fire ... destroy the temptation..." Builders, however, proved stubborn. Andreev’s frieze decorates the fourth floor facade.

Shortly after its opening, the Metropol became enormously popular in Moscow, thanks to meetings and exhibition held there. Rich Moscow merchants such as Nikolai Ryabushinsky staged gorgeous banquets at the hotel. Fyodor Shalyapin sang his famous Dubinushka song at the Metropol. In the early 1910s, the interior of the hotel’s famous restaurant was redesigned by the architect Adolph Erikhson, who was also one of the founders of the joint stock company which managed the Metropol. He introduced elements of neo-classicism -- ionic porticoes, vases, chandeliers. British vice-consul Bruce Lockhart (who later became notorious for his participation in the "plot of ambassadors" against the Soviet republic) wrote in his memoirs about how he was startled by the rich decor of the Metropol's restaurant.

The Metropol is also connected with the history of Russian literature. Valery Bryusov, the famous symbolist poet worked at the hotel, which housed the headquarters of the literary journal of the Symbolists. Famous Arctic researcher Georgi Sedov stayed at the Metropol.

The hotel also played a crucial role in the revolutionary events of October 1917. The Metropol was the last bastion of troops loyal to the Provisional Government. Red Guards dislodged the troops by firing point blank from a cannon on Spassky lane. After two days of artillery shelling, the Metropol was a pitiful sight. The facades were covered with bullets holes and fractures; the "black-eyed" windows were broken. One can only wonder how the walls withstood the shelling.

When, in 1918, Lenin decided to move the Soviet capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the hotel became the House of Soviets No. 2 (there were nearly thirty such Houses created by the 1930s -- the Hotel National was No. 1). As such, served as home for the Central Executive Committee and the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, headed by famous narkom Georgy Chicherin, who worked and lived at the Metropol.

The first Constitution of the Soviet Russia was drafted at Metropol. A monument to the Constitutional Commission's chairman, Yakov Sverdlov (who lived in a hotel room on the second floor) was later erected next to the Metropol and the square was named for him. (The name was removed and the statue dismantled after the abortive August 1991 putsch; the square was renamed Teatralnaya ploshchad -- Theater Square). Nikolai Bukharin also had a room at the Metropol. Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin himself visited Metropol on many occasions, which is commemorated on a memorial plaque on the building.

But, after launching the New Economic Policy (NEP) in the 1920s, the Bolshevik regime needed more hotels. In 1927, the Metropol was again turned back into a hotel. One of its first clients was the famous Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev, who returned to Russia from the West after a seven-year-long exile. The writer Alexander Kuprin also stayed at the Metropol upon his return to Soviet Russia from emigration in 1937.

On many occasions, the Metropol played a propaganda role for the Soviet regime. In 1931, George Bernard Shaw stayed at Metropol during a trip in which he was mesmerized by Soviet Russia. He met with Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, whom he called "the world's most charming widow." Shaw also met with the writer Maxim Gorky and with Josef Stalin. The Soviet government even celebrated the writer’s 75th birthday with a fete on July 26, 1931 in the famous Dom Soyuzov.

For many years, the Metropol lived up to its international reputation as the finest hotel in Russia. For 50 years it played host to scores of VIP guests and foreign travelers (in an irony of fate, both John F. Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald stayed at the hotel at different times). But, in 1986, Goskominturist decided to close the hotel for renovation. It was to be transformed into the first five-star hotel in the USSR. A Finnish developer was tapped for the job.

When the redesign of the rooms began, public opinion in this era of glasnost sounded an alarm.  Architect and historian Yevgenia Kirichenko wrote that the artistic value of hotel room interiors should be likened to a museum, and that the renovation didn't take that into account. Under pressure from public opinion, thorough restoration work was undertaken, which delayed the reopening again. Unfortunately, one of the best interiors -- the lobby -- was lost. Oak window frames also disappeared.

The long list of historical events and figures connected with the Metropol is what makes this hotel unique. As Metropol Hotel Public Relations Manager Maria Malysheva said,  “Sure, there are plenty of five-star hotels now in Moscow. You can, say, go to the Marriott, which is a great hotel chain, and get your top-class, US-style service there. But if you want to touch on history, then there is nothing like the Metropol. For, when the hotel was reopened in 1991, all the antique furnishings had been restored; in all the deluxe suites, the paintings are authentic. This is what our customers appreciate." Among the panoply of VIP guests at the hotel in recent years have been Elton John, Claudia Schiffer, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others. Mstislav Rostropovich (who met his wife. Galina Vishnevskaya at  the hotel’s restaurant) is a regular. The latest VIP guest was ex-Beatle Ringo Star, who came to Russia to give concert on August 25.

Even though prices for the five-star hotel's 370 rooms are quite high (between $310 for a standard room up to $1,900 for a presidential suite), the Metropol was fully booked for the month of September, despite the financial crisis in Russia. "Well, the current bookings were made in May-June,” said Malysheva. “So now we are just reaping the results of early booking. September is a high season for us. We have had only one booking canceled as far as I know, which is understandable in today's situation. Other than that, we are bullish -- it is probably not the best time to invest in Russia, but visitors will keep coming -- including businessmen -- if only to stay in touch."