The book by the famous architecture journalist Nikolay Malinin tells the fantastic story of one of Moscow’s oldest hotels. Being originally conceived as an opera theater, as envisaged by its founder Savva Mamontov, the Metropol has turned into a live museum, without ever stopping to be Moscow’s most prestigious hotel.

The building is seemingly familiar to everyone, yet it keeps a lot of secrets, which are revealed in the book based on archive materials. Dramatic events that accompanied its construction are interwoven with staggering historical cataclysms, that scorched the lives of the building residents. The book is both an arts study and a historical investigation, but does not ultimately fall into either category – just like the building itself, which balances between the fluency of Modern style and austerity of Neo-classicism.

The first chapters of the book are a true architectural thriller revealing the secrets of the famous majolicas, bas-reliefs and hotel interiors. The second part includes life stories of renowned people who stayed at the hotel during their journeys or lived here for years.

The Metropol: The Moscow Legend will not just become an element of your home interior – you will want to read it over and over again, as an intriguing detective story or a breathtaking historical novel.

The book contains a lot of historical photographs from private collections, many of them never published before.
The book is available in Russian and English.

The gift edition costs RUB 1,900. 

The book can be bought at the reception of the hotel, as well as in our online store. After ordering a book online it needs to be picked up at the Metropol.