Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya – Don-vip

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya

The Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya (Russian: Гостиница Ленинградская) is one of Moscow’s Seven Sisters, skyscrapers built in the early 1950s in the neoclassical style. Russian neoclassical architecture mixes the Russian neoclassical style with the style of American skyscrapers of the 1930s. A main element of Russian neoclassicism is its use of socialist realism art. The hotel, completed in 1954, was designed to be the finest luxury hotel in Moscow.

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya – 03

The staircase features one of the longest lighting fixtures in the world—it was once in The Guinness Book of Records. The halls and corridors of the hotel’s upper floors are panelled in dark cherry wood.

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya – 01

The tower of the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya Hotel dominates Komsomolskaya Square, with its three railway stations (the Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky and Kazansky) located nearby, along with a main ring road of downtown Moscow.

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya – 04

The influence of medieval Russian architecture was more evident in the exterior design of the building than in other 1950s skyscrapers. Contemporaries noted that the white-red-gold colouring of the walls ‘recalls the favourite colours of ancient Russian architecture’, the central section is stylistically close to the Kremlin towers. The main entrance is designed in the form of a terem porch. It is decorated with multi-cornered cornices, fanciful pediments, hanging weights and pinnacles. The ribs and emblem of the octagonal spire, the rosettes between the pylons and the orbs on the obelisks are covered in gold.

Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya – 02

The stylistic borrowings in the interiors of the hotel are even more significant. Elements of decoration were copied from samples of pre-Petrine palaces and churches. The lift hall, decorated with golden smalt and Shoksha porphyry, is made in the form of an altar niche. The chandeliers in the halls and on the staircases are stylised as paniculars. Motifs from Russian history were used in the decoration of the interiors: on the ground floor, two round medallions are placed above the stairwells. One of them symbolises the Russian victory at the Kulikovo Field (1380), the other the victory at the Battle of the Ice (1242).