The Weird, Wacky Wonderworld Of Communist-Era Hotels

April 12, 2018 7:09 AM

A celebration of classic haunts where the spirits of the old regimes still often sleep.

You could always tell these places by their very consciously Socialist names, such as “Mir” (Peace) or “Druzba” (Friendship) -- or grand city names like “Moskva” or “Riga.”

posted by poffin boffin (22 comments total)

I love these, I'd really like to spend more time exploring Eastern Europe. In 2004 myself and a friend hitched a ride from Northern Greece into the FYRO Macedonia for a night and stayed at Bitola's old Soviet style hotel, and had a great time! Notably when we tried to crash a wedding at the hotel, thinking no-one would notice... they noticed.
posted by sarahdal at 7:19 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

The demolition of Hotel Praha in Prague is a damn tragedy. What a glorious looking beast.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:32 AM on April 12, 2018 [4 favorites]

I've never stayed in a Soviet-era communist bloc hotel but when I watched The Grand Budapest Hotel, I somehow knew they'd gotten the 1968 lobby exactly right.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:34 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I want those huge red leatherette chairs for my supervillain lair.
posted by poffin boffin at 7:36 AM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]

> It’s not immediately obvious why the party and state-security apparatus would take such a keen interest in running hotels, until you consider the fact that these places were tremendous moneymakers for the regimes.

This seems to downplay the value of concentrating all their foreign visitors in a single building to make them easier to monitor.
posted by ardgedee at 7:47 AM on April 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

My first job after university (1995) was developing the software for an ultrasonics based defect-detection system designed to find flaws in the pressure vessel of a nuclear power plant - specifically the Mochovce Vuje reactor near the spa town of Piestany. When not onsite, the hardware engineer and I stayed in the Atom Hotel which was aptly named. I, like a complete idiot, didn't take a camera so have no pictures, but the decor was low-budget Soviet Futuristic Awesome. Thanks for the post - this brings back memories. I still have a complete set of Vuje lapel pins with the atom logo.
posted by parki at 7:49 AM on April 12, 2018 [6 favorites]

I find this stuff endlessly fascinating.

Related: Soviet luxury - Kiev’s surreal modernist hotels, and why you need to visit them
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:07 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sorry for the derail, but one day at the Vuje plant, I was working away and the power went out (!). It turned out that someone had fallen into the electrical grid, so they had to reset the "# of days since an accident" sign back to zero (from not a high number) . What to do at a nuclear power plant when the power goes out? A couple Czech engineers came in, opened the radiators and pulled out 750ml bottles of Burchak - a young wine which they fermented in pop bottles using warmth from the radiators scattered around the room. You were expressly forbidden from bringing alcohol into the plant, but there was no rule to say you couldn't make it.
posted by parki at 8:17 AM on April 12, 2018 [14 favorites]

I once fell through the floor (or rather my one leg did) in the old intourist hotel in Osh, Kyrgyzstan. Like my leg was waving down from the ceiling into the room below.
posted by JPD at 8:19 AM on April 12, 2018 [15 favorites]

i am sorry for laughing as hard as i am right now at the plight of your leg.
posted by poffin boffin at 8:29 AM on April 12, 2018 [7 favorites]

I've stayed in hotels like these in Cuba, and I love them.

I want to visit at least half of these so I could pretend to be Peter Guillam pretending to be a French agricultural scientist and meeting with a contact for George Smiley.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:31 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Yay, they included Krakow's Hotel Forum! I have great affection for that old eyesore. Before the renovation I figured it would be a great place to film a horror movie, or to set up a paintball business.
posted by orrnyereg at 8:41 AM on April 12, 2018

I'm sorry? What's that? "Not exactly Peter Guillam material?"

OK, fine...pretending to be Toby Esterhase pretending to be a crooked low-level interior ministry official meeting with a small-time pimp to secure blackmail material.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:42 AM on April 12, 2018

Krakow's Hotel Forum

Oh wow, such connections for me! On my first time through Europe I ate breakfast there, eggs and bacon that came in their own little frying pan. "What a place," I thought to myself.

And then, living in Myslenice and commuting into Krakow most days, I went past that place on my bus for a few years running. It seemed to have closed down in the 90s, before I left . Would be great if it opened again.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:50 AM on April 12, 2018

Related: A spa where patients bathe in radioactive water.
posted by sapagan at 10:40 AM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

The list is very not complete without the Hotel Uzbekistan in Tashkent, the AC didn't work, the wifi didn't work, the elevators didn't work, the lighting sorta worked, the stay was spectacular.

(Hey, I've stayed in the Cosmos Hotel in Chisinau too, I still have a broken tooth that came off white trying to chew pickled pigs ear!)
posted by Twinge at 12:18 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was gonna say, I think I stayed in the Cosmos too! The cold, cold non-ensuite showers were unpleasant, but the room itself was cozy.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 1:10 PM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I really liked this piece, especially the way the text contextualizes the pictures. Stuff like “This nexus of party bosses, state-security types, local hustlers, and Western businessmen often lent the hotels a sleazy vibe” really helps make the photos come alive.

Naive question though: without that context, would these hotels look different than western hotels from the same era?
posted by mrmurbles at 2:23 PM on April 12, 2018

I love some of those interiors. That carved wood wall is gorgeous!
posted by dnash at 2:53 PM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have strangely fond memories of the Muntenia in Pitești; I quite literally remember walking round there and thinking it felt like being thrown back in time a few decades. Stayed in a few hotels like this in Romania, but this is the one that sticks out in my mind. (This and the Ambasador in București, but that was more for the mafia vibe in the lobby and the rusty-looking water in the bathtub.)

I lived near the Continental in Târgu Mureş, and while I never went inside, the exterior feels similar.
posted by myotahapea at 3:25 PM on April 12, 2018

These are still going strong in China! About 10 years ago a friend and I stayed at a massive state-run hotel in rural China that was also utterly empty other than us and staff. It was over the top lavish and also badly made. In the middle of breakfast the staff suddenly started freaking out because authorities had come to check out if the rumor of foreigners staying at the hotel were true. The hotel had neglected to register us or something. They had us hide in a conference center and got a taxi to sneak up to the back door which we hopped into getaway style. Good times.
posted by misterpatrick at 5:36 PM on April 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

elsietheeel: "The demolition of Hotel Praha in Prague is a damn tragedy. What a glorious looking beast."

Your reaction could not possibly be more different from mine.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:28 PM on April 13, 2018