Back in 2010, on the site of today's Zaryadye Park in the center of Moscow, once stood the Rossiya - an enormous hotel with 2,272 rooms that looked more like a gigantic research institute.
.jpg)
Initially, it had been planned to build yet another Stalinist-type skyscraper on the site, but after Stalin's death, the idea was abandoned. At the same time, there was a shortage of hotel accommodation in Moscow and it was thought desirable to resolve the problem all in one go. That is how in 1967 the biggest hotel in the country, as well as the world (it is in the Guinness Book of Records), came into being.
Ten years later, in 1977, there was a fire at the Rossiya, which engulfed the building between the fourth and 11th floors. It was caused by a coffee maker that had been left plugged in, which accidentally ignited the furniture. Forty-two people died in the blaze.
Moreover, at the time, Soviet stand-up comedian Arkady Raikin was performing in the hotel's concert hall on the ground floor, and was asked to extend his performance by 90 minutes so that the 2,500 spectators didn't pour out of the building and obstruct the rescue operation. All this time, while the top floors were engulfed in flames, the audience members were forced to watch the performance. The media kept silent about the tragedy - there was only a short paragraph in the Trud daily expressing condolences to the families of the people who died in the fire.
Many famous people stayed in the Rossiya after it was rebuilt, such as George Bush Senior and Mike Tyson; many movies and the country's first reality show were also filmed in it. But the economic collapse of the country affected the hotel, too: In the 1990s, it started losing money and eventually closed on January 1, 2006. Throughout the subsequent years, authorities unsuccessfully tried to find the money for its renovation and, in the end, it was simply demolished.