Recreating an Image: Hospitality's Importance
An international hub of prosperity needs places of accommodations fit to cater to the tourists reaching for a glimpse of the magnificence of the country. Their stay within the mother city would have to inspire thoughts of comfort and unrivaled service, marks of a truly superior hospitable culture.
Hotel Ukraina, now known as the Radisson Royal Hotel of Moscow, serves as a magnificent source of hospitality in the city that often gets a reputation, especially in the western culture, as one of being uninviting and unappealing to tourists. Designed by Arkady Mordvinov and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky, the 34-story building saw its opening in May of 1957. Over half a century of overwhelmingly positive reviews earned the hotel the title of ‘Moscow Home’ to the countless number of guests that have been served by the staff of the hotel (1). The hotel serves as a welcoming to the tourists of Moscow, a service that Stalin hoped would begin to deconstruct negative narratives of harsh Russian culture. The conception of this building could be seen as a public relation stunt, an investment in their hospitable identity to promote positive imagery of the country in the eyes of all who stayed in the building. Based off of current evidence, it would seem that this has indeed worked. Undergoing renovations within the past decade, the hotel has renovated its own image. State of the art technology and modernized rooms offer a contemporary glimpse into the highest hospitality services that Moscow has to offer (2). However, the hotel may be a façade if one truly wants a glimpse into the culture of Moscow. Although hotels are intended to be high-level in terms of room quality and service, the location can be deceiving of true life in Moscow. About 20 minutes from the Kremlin when metro and walking times are added, the inner-city location leaves much to be seen from the outer concentric zones of the city which are much less glamorous than the skyscraping beauty of the inner concentric zone.
Absent is the struggle of the lower class workers struggling for living wages, yet present is the luxurious view of the Moskva River as guests awaken from their slumber. The hotel, magnificent as it is, may not be able to truly hide the realities that exist within the city and country. Although the hotel may not capture the experience that most Muscovites achieve, average wages of people in Moscow falls at under $15,000 per year, its location, grandeur, and 5-star service is enough to impress guests and display an image of success and dominance (3). Stalin’s intended effect, however, is slowly decaying as the availability of information reveals more about the city than a simple vacation or business trip to the capital of Russia ever could.
Located in one of the busiest squares in all of Moscow, Komsomolskaya to be exact, the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel nearly outdoes its Stalinist sister hotel in terms of decadent service (4). Constructed and designed in the style of Stalinist neoclassical style with an influence of the art-deco style that trended in New York during the early 20th century, the Hotel viscerally compares with a metropolitan center of business and tourism. Stalin initially yearned to be on equal footing to capitalist cities, and the image of a buzzing square juxtaposed with a grand luxury hotel implies ample, if not exorbitant, quality of life for the surrounding area. Much like the Radisson Royal Hotel of Moscow, the Leningradskaya Hotel paints an opulent image that can be deceiving if one wants a more nuanced take on the current state of living for the majority of Muscovites.
Stalin ultimately envisioned centers of tourism and accommodations that would place Moscow on equal levels of power with the greatest of capitalist cities. He succeeded for nearly half a century until the widespread bandwidth of information ushered in realizations of hasher realities for the citizens of Moscow. Even down to the foundations and frames of the hotels which were heavier and clumsier than those of New York skyscrapers, the hotels only temporarily held a façade of Russian dominance to traveling eyes.
1) http://www.ukraina-hotel.ru/about/
Leningradskaya Hotel during the day and night. Note its particularly busy activity which implies a strong center of commerce