Hotel Astoria

A landmark hotel that shapes the image and history of St. Petersburg. In 1901, London-based company Palace Hotel bought a land plot at Bolshaya Morskaya Street, along with the tenement building that stood there, in order to open an expensive hotel. To carry out the plans, the company hired St. Petersburg architect Fyodor Lidval.
The hotel opened its doors in 1912, and through the efforts of many it turned out to be the best place in the city – with electricity and heating, with its own pastry cook and women-only meeting salons, with a winter garden and a library and a bunch of other important things that were not readily available to the residents of St. Petersburg in the early 20th century.
Up until the revolution of 1917, all was as good as it gets. Then Astoria had suffered several assaults and was later nationalized and incorporated. The hotel was passed under control of the Intourist company that managed it up until 1996. During World War II, the building housed a military hospital, and for a short while after the war it served as an apartment building for members of the creative community, who along with the roof over their heads were given allotments of land for a vegetable garden right between the Astoria and St. Isaac’s Cathedral.
For half a century after that, Astoria bloomed, attracting celebrities of all kinds, from Margaret Thatcher and Maya Plisetskaya to Alain Delon and Depeche Mode.
In 2012, the hotel was reconstructed once again, elevating the quality of its premises even further, and the results of that process we can observe today: excellent breakfasts with a view of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, surrounded by crimson velvet and crystalware, interior decorations that use linen of rare beauty, historical elements of décor, and a quiet and on-the-spot service that have been instituted here through the efforts of the British hospitality group Rocco Forte Hotels.