The Angleterre Hotel () is a modern, luxury business-class hotel on Voznesensky Prospekt at

Saint Isaac's Square Saint Isaac's Square or Isaakiyevskaya Ploshchad (), known as Vorovsky Square () between 1923 and 1944, in Saint Petersburg, Russia is a major city square sprawling between the Mariinsky Palace and Saint Isaac's Cathedral, which separates it fr ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The hotel opened in 1991, replicating a historic hotel originally opened in 1840 and reconstructed in 1876. The hotel has 192 rooms, including five suites.

History

19th century The first hotel on the site was established by Napoleon Bokin in 1840, a three-story structure known as Napoleon's. From 1845–1846, the structure was expanded by architect Adrian Ruben with the addition of a fourth floor and converted to S. Poggenpol's apartment house. In 1876 it was again rebuilt and converted back to a hotel, named the Hotel Schmidt-Angleterre, with the former for its proprietor, Teresa Schmidt and the latter meaning 'England' in French.

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

was a frequent guest. 20th century The hotel was again reconstructed from 1911–1912, at which point it became the Hotel d'Angleterre. At this point, the hotel had 75 rooms and numerous shops on the ground floor. The neighboring Hotel Astoria, which opened in 1912, soon proved such a success that the Angleterre was set for demolition for a huge expansion of the Astoria designed by architect

Fyodor Lidval Fyodor Ivanovich Lidval (, Swedish: Johan Fredrik Lidvall) (June 1 (June 13) 1870, St. Petersburg – 1945, Stockholm) was a Russian-Swedish architect. Life Lidvall was born in St. Petersburg into a family of Swedes. In 1882 he attended elementa ...

, mirroring the existing Astoria building. However the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

prevented this. The hotel's name was changed in 1919, after the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, to Hotel International. It returned to its original name in 1925, the same year poet

Sergei Yesenin Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (, ; 1895 – 28 December 1925), sometimes spelled as Esenin, was a Russian lyric poet. He is one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century. One of his narratives was "lyrical evocations ...

hung himself in the hotel on 28 December. The hotel was converted to Evacuation Hospital No. 926 in September 1941, at the beginning of the

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...

. The hospital closed in the summer of 1942 and the building remained vacant until the end of the war. Remodeling began in 1945 and the hotel reopened on December 30, 1948 as the Hotel Leningradskaya. In 1975, the hotel ceased to operate independently and was merged with the adjacent Hotel Astoria as "Block B" of the hotel. In 1985 the Angleterre hotel structure was closed, and in 1987, during

Perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

, the city authorities decided to demolish the aging hotel and replace it with a modern building with a facade copying the original. Members of the public gathered on St. Isaac's Square to protest the plan. It was the first major public protest in the history of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

to be left unpunished by the authorities. The hotel was ultimately demolished on 18 March 1987. The current hotel, designed by A.I. Pribulsky, opened in 1991. 21st century Today, the hotel is owned and managed by

Rocco Forte Hotels Rocco Forte Hotels is a British hotel group that was established in 1996 by hotelier Sir Rocco Forte and Olga Polizzi. The group owns and operates 14 hotels across Europe. Sir Rocco Forte is Executive Chairman, while Olga Polizzi is Deputy Chai ...

, which also owns and manages the adjacent Hotel Astoria. The Angleterre is marketed as the business-class wing of its more luxurious sister. The upper guest room floors of the two hotels are connected. A cinema has been operating in the hotel since 2013, but it was closed in 2025. File:Angleterre & Astoria 1930.jpg, The Angleterre and Astoria in 1930 File:Sankt-Petěrburg 122.jpg, The Angleterre and Astoria in 2008 File:Leningrad March 18 1987.jpg, Just after demolition explosion on March 18 1987 File:Гостиница Англетер.jpg, The Angleterre seen from St. Isaac's Cathedral

References

External links

Official websiteAngleterre Hotel
@ Encyclopaedia of Saint Petersburg * {{coord, 59.9334, N, 30.3086, E, display=title Hotel buildings completed in 1876 Hotel buildings completed in 1991 Hotels established in 1876 Hotels established in 1991 Buildings and structures demolished in 1987 Hotels in Saint Petersburg Saint Isaac's Square 1889 establishments in the Russian Empire Companies nationalised by the Soviet Union