Author's Notes

Left: a close-up of the leather bound cover of this special limited edition. A collector’s item, this book has been bound by hand in dark burgundy leather.

About this book:

Welcome to the Grand Hotel Europe, Sir,’ the doorman says, the pride in his voice apparent. The term ‘Grand’ is certainly a fitting one in terms of the hotel’s reputation, its historic stature, and its physical presence. The façade of the hotel stretches 160 meters along Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa (Street), from the bustling Nevsky Prospekt to the peaceful Arts Square where the statue of Pushkin stands.
St Petersburg, constructed on over 30 islands, is the ‘Venice of the North’ (© Théophile Gautier, page 41). With its palaces, churches and monuments, this city is certainly one of the most beautiful historic settings on earth. We are staying at the Grand Hotel Europe, the hotel where Tchaikovsky spent his honeymoon, where George Bernard Shaw saw Maxim Gorky and where Dmitri Shostakovich played a sonata for Sergei Prokofiev.
Let us lean back in one of the comfortable armchairs at the Lobby bar and savour the atmosphere of this grand hotel. While we listen to the piano player, our minds wander back to the days when St Petersburg was the capital of the mighty Russian Empire. In the mid-19th century, St Petersburg had about 600,000 inhabitants. Within the first years of the Grand Hotel Europe’s existence – it opened in 1875 – this figure rose to over 800,000. The city was the hub of six railways (described in the Encylopedia Britannica, 1889 as ‘two towards West to the Gulf of Finland and to Port Baltic’ (today Estonia), ‘two towards Warsaw and Moscow and two short ones to Oranienbaum and Tsarskoye Selo’).
The city was the centre of science and fine arts. Its Academy of Sciences rendered important services in the exploration of Russia, the Pulkovo astronomical observatory’s yearly publications enjoyed a great reputation, the Society of Naturalists and the Physical and Chemical Society issued invaluable publications. Four medical societies and an Archaeological Society, a 120 years old Commercial Society, a Technical and Navigation Society, they all were of great importance.
St Petersburg’s music conservatory gave superior musical instruction, making the city – with one Imperial theatre for the ballet and one for the opera – the cradle of Russian opera, ballet and music. At the public library a collection of over one million books could be found, including 50,000 ‘Rossica’ (everything published in Russia). 120 periodicals were circulated (the right to publish political papers was in the hands of very few editors and severe censorship made it harder every day). The Hermitage Art Gallery contained a fine collection of the Flemish school and some Russian paintings, some good specimens of the Italian, French and Spanish schools and invaluable treasures of the Greek and Scythian antiquities.
This was St Petersburg when the hotel opened. Follow me, my dear fellow traveller, into the story, the tales and legends of this grand hotel.
Andreas Augustin

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