Staying in a ritzy new hotel can be nice, but it’s not every day you can stay in a hotel once occupied by revolutionaries who shook the world.
A trip to Moscow costs an arm and a leg (even without accidentally hitting on an oligarch’s mistress), so why not pony up a few extra rubles and stay in one of the city’s most historic luxury hotels, Le Royal Meridien National. Designed in an opulent Art Nouveau style over a century ago, the National housed Vladimir Lenin and other Bolsheviks as they built the Kremlin across the street in Red Square. In fact, the hotel offers views of the Kremlin from its premium rooms.
In the early 20th century, the National represented the height of luxury, becoming the first Moscow hotel with an elevator, but the place needed a makeover by the time the Iron Curtain fell. Closed from 1991 to 1995, Le Royal Meridien meticulously renovated their hotel by modernizing the infrastructure and technology while retaining its turn-of-the-century look. Despite additions like flat-screen TVs and broadband internet access, each room is still individually designed and decorated with antique furniture and fixtures that transport you to a time when it was better to be a Madoff than a Romanov. Guests can even crash in Room 107, Lenin’s old hang, for a true historic experience. Rivaled in beauty only by the Metropol (where part of Dr. Zhivago was filmed), the National is a museum unto itself that’s within blocks of St. Basil’s, the Bolshoi, the Kremlin and the city’s many grand cathedrals.
For travelers, the National features an exceptional English-speaking staff that will mark up your tourist maps with suggestions or use their pull to secure reservations at hot spots like Galleria and Pushkin. If you want to remain at the hotel, the Restaurant Moskovsky is pricey but exceptional, and the Alexandrovsky Bar is the perfect place to order a chilled shot of Boda or Kaufman Special, two magnificent Russian vodkas currently unavailable in the States. But guys, if the ladies at the bar start to flirt, don’t take it as a compliment, if you know what I mean.
Since its spike in petrol revenues this past decade, Moscow’s absorbed elements of western culture like Hollywood glamour and hip-hop bling (rap is huge in Moscow), but the National Hotel is one of the few places that remains completely and authentically Russian. With warm weather and the dollar-to-ruble exchange finally making a comeback, there’s never been a better time to wrestle the Russian Bear.