Since it opened its doors in 1905, the Metropol Hotel in Moscow has witnessed seismic events in Russia’s 20th-century history. In its early years it was a glittering playground for wealthy merchants, louche cavalry officers, and ladies of leisure and luxury. When the Bolsheviks seized power, Tsarist officers beat a retreat to the hotel to fight a last losing battle against the revolutionaries. Afterward, Lenin requisitioned it, renamed it the Second House of Soviets, and sent from it the telegram instructing the massacre of the deposed Tsar Nicholas and his family. The building became a hotel again under Stalin, but during his Great Purge not all residents made it through the night. Guests slept more soundly after the dictator’s death, and in 1991 some of them included exiles who enjoyed a celebratory dinner at the hotel to mark the thawing of the Cold War and the bitter end of Communist Party rule.
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