Sovetsky Hotel, the former Yar Restaurant

The pink building with its colonnade and sculptures on the attic stands on Leningradsky Prospekt not far from the racecourse.

The Yar

Its roots go back to the Yar, the loudest out-of-town restaurant in old Moscow, where Roma choirs sang and merchant Moscow caroused, and where Chekhov and Kuprin were among the literary visitors. The building took its present form in 1910 to a design by Adolf Erichson: at that point it was a luxurious restaurant complex with a winter garden and a concert hall.

What came after

After the revolution it housed a film technical school, a hospital and a pilots' club, and in the early 1950s it was rebuilt as the Sovetskaya hotel, gaining a heavy portico and a formal carriage entrance. Stalinist grandeur was grafted onto a pre-revolutionary facade, and both layers can be read in it today.

The Romen

Since the middle of the last century part of the building has been occupied by the Romen Roma theatre, the only one of its kind in the country. Roma singing thus returned to the building it all started in, though in an entirely different form.

Where to look at it from

The facade reads best from the far side of the avenue: a long band of arched windows, niches with sculpted figures, a balustrade along the top and red lettering above the cornice. Guests and theatregoers go inside; there is no separate visit to the building.

Address

Leningradsky Prospekt 32/2, Moscow · metro Dinamo

Opening hours

Hotel and theatre keep their own hours

Prices

Free to view from outside

On the map