Hotel Rossiya
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The Hotel Rossija ( Russian Гостиница Россия / Gostiniza Rossija , i.e. Hotel Russia ) next to Red Square at 6 Varvarka Street in the center of the Russian capital Moscow was the largest hotel in Europe until it was closed on December 31, 2005 and the subsequent demolition .
history
The building was designed by the architect Dmitri Chechulin and opened on January 15, 1967. The three-star hotel extended over an area of 240,000 square meters and had 3,170 rooms on 21 floors. The hotel was built in the 1960s on the foundations of a planned “Stalin high-rise” , for which almost the entire residential district of Zaryadye in the old business suburb of Kitai-Gorod was razed to the ground in the 1940s .
On February 25, 1977, for unexplained causes, fire broke out simultaneously on the 5th and 11th floors of the hotel, which hit large parts of the building in a matter of minutes. 42 people were killed and the building was badly damaged. There were some indications of an intentional arson , but this has not yet been proven.
On January 1, 2006 the hotel was closed. After the permanent tenants moved out, the building was demolished in the course of 2006. The Central State Concert Hall, which once belonged to the hotel complex and was also called "Rossija", was also torn down.
Plans for a new building
Originally the businessman Schalwa Tschigirinski wanted to rebuild the Rossija as a five-star hotel with the British architect Norman Foster for 800 million dollars. Tschigirinski maintained close contacts with the building contractor and wife of the then Moscow mayor, Jelena Baturina . A court declared the tender to be invalid and the huge area has been empty since 2006. The plans for a multifunctional building complex with the new President Yeltsin Library and several small hotels also failed.
The Rossiya wasteland behind the Kremlin belongs to a joint-stock company of the same name controlled by the Moscow city government. After Moscow's ex-mayor Yuri Luzhkov had resisted the project of a new parliamentary center for years, his successor Sergei Sobyanin, according to media reports , spoke out in favor of building a gigantic complex for both chambers of parliament for two billion euros in place of the former Hotel Rossija . On a total area of 200,000 square meters, this will include a conference room with 5,000 seats. So far, the Duma (People's Chamber) meets near the Bolshoi Theater , while the Federation Council (representation of the member states) is divided between buildings in Bolshaya Dmitrowka and partly on New Arbat.
In 2013, plans became public to create a park on the site instead. The 13-hectare green area called Zaryadye Park ( Russian Парк "Зарядье" ), designed by the New York architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro , opened on September 9, 2017. It is the first major new park in Moscow in half a century.
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Sonja Zekri: New plan for Hotel Rossija . Southgerman newspaper. March 25, 2011. Retrieved March 25, 2011.
- ^ Vedomosti: New parliamentary center to replace Rossiya Hotel . RIA Novosti / Vedomosti. March 23, 2011. Retrieved March 23, 2011.
- ^ SPIEGEL ONLINE: Zaryadye Park in Moscow: The Buga site at the Kremlin. Retrieved October 22, 2017 .
Coordinates: 55 ° 45 ′ 5 ″ N , 37 ° 37 ′ 44 ″ E