The Carlton, Moscow

A historical place and a postcard view of the Kremlin.
There has always been a hotel here. As early as mid-19th century, a small and modest France Hotel stood in the place when The Carlton stands today — and one of its guests was the poet Alexander Blok. In the mid-1960s, the three-storey France Hotel was demolished in favor of the high-rise reinforced concrete Intourist Hotel that the residents of Moscow nicknamed a “decayed tooth.” The tooth held out for 40 years, becoming the refuge of foreign stars, black marketers, and prostitutes. Intourist was sorted out in 2002, freeing up the space for a new hotel that was supposed to become more similar in style to the historical look of Tverskaya Street. That’s how the building of The Carlton hotel, designed by architect Andrey Meerson, was born. (Meerson also design the Ararat Park Hyatt hotel.)
The Carlton has an all-inclusive configuration: you can recuperate in the semi-darkness of the local spa glistening with Swarovski crystals or take pictures of the Kremlin from the panoramic windows of O2 Lounge restaurant on the hotel’s roof. You can find solace by marching on the silky rugs of its spacious rooms or focus your attention on the squid arancini at the Sartoria Lamberti restaurant on the ground floor. You can master the tread mill at the fitness studio or forget yourself at the local lobby bar. Actually, you don’t have to leave the hotel at all — trying checking into The Carlton with any scenario in mind and, most likely, it will be brought to life.