The Hotel National was financed by The Varvarinskoe Joint-Stock Company of Householders and designed by architect Alexander Ivanov. Construction began in 1901 and the 160-room hotel opened on January 14, 1903. The hotel's opening is sometimes listed as January 1, because Russia was still using the
Julian calendar at the time, which was 13 days behind the
Gregorian calendar used in the rest of the world. In 1915 the hotel made plans to add two floors on top of the six-story structure, but shortages caused by
World War I meant that the work was never begun. In the aftermath of the
Russian Revolution, the capital of Russia was moved to Moscow. In March 1918, the hotel became the home of the
first Soviet government. As the Kremlin had been damaged during fighting in October 1917 and was under repair,
Lenin made his home in room 107 at the Hotel National with his wife for seven days. The hotel is today marked with a plaque noting this event. The hotel also accommodated other Soviet leaders, including
Trotsky and secret police chief
Felix Dzerzhinsky. The building continued to be used by the Soviet government afterwards as a hostel for official party delegates, and was renamed
First House of Soviets in 1919. By 1931 the building was in need of repair and was given a complete renovation to house foreign visitors. It was redecorated with museum-quality furniture and antiques from the palaces of the Tsars and Russian nobility, including
Tsarskoye Selo and the
Anichkov Palace. The pieces remain in the hotel's collection to this day. The huge mosaic on the hotel's upper corner was replaced with a 120-square meter
socialist realist artwork focusing on the industrial might of the Soviet economy. The Hotel National reopened under its original name in 1932. The hotel joined
Intourist, the state-run tourism monopoly, in 1933. During
World War II the hotel was home to numerous Allied delegations, including the group headed by
W. Averell Harriman that visited in September 1941 and British Foreign Minister
Anthony Eden in December 1941. In the late 1960s the
Hotel Intourist, a towering, modern glass structure, was constructed adjacent to the National. The Hotel Intourist was merged with the National in 1983 and the hotels operated for a time under joint management. The Hotel National had suffered from years of neglect and when a large piece of the facade fell off in 1989, the hotel was closed for reconstruction. The Hotel National was renovated from 1991 to 1995. It was transferred by the
Russian government to the
City of Moscow in 1992 and reopened on May 9, 1995, as part of Forte Hotels. When Forte took over
Le Méridien Hotels & Resorts in 1996, the hotel was renamed
Le Méridien National Hotel. It was further renamed
Le Royal Méridien National Hotel in 1998. On December 9, 2003, a
Chechen female suicide bomber detonated herself outside the hotel. It is thought that her target was the
State Duma building across the street and that the bomb detonated prematurely. Six people died and 13 were injured in the blast. The hotel returned to its original name in 2009 when it moved from the
Le Méridien brand to
The Luxury Collection. In 2011 the hotel, which had previously been owned by the City of Moscow, was
privatized and sold to businessman
Mikhail Gutseriev for 4.7 billion Rubles. The hotel ceased to be managed by The Luxury Collection division of
Marriott International on July 5, 2022, when Marriott severed its relationship with all 22 of its properties in Russia, due to sanctions on Russia in response to the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. ==Famous guests==