Whether you were drawn to the StandArt Hotel Moscow by the city’s rich cultural heritage, its turbulent political history, its breath-taking performing arts or just the need for some good caviar, Moscow will inspire and confound you. When you travel to Moscow, you travel back in time—to the days of the Tsars of the Mother Russia, to the firebrand communists, to the tortured novelists of the Golden Age of Russian literature. All these ghosts of Moscow’s past still linger in the capital city, making this a fascinating holiday destination.
The classic Moscow of the Romanovs, Leo Tolstoy, ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich is well known around the world: The Kremlin, the Bolshoi Ballet, the Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin State Museum and the Conservatory top most to-do lists. But there’s another Moscow — alternately ostentatious, hip, crass, beautiful, elegant, luxurious and fascinating — that all visitors to the city must see if they want to get a feel for what this place is all about.
You can definitely get a feel of it in the StandArt Hotel Moscow. Open since 2016, the retro-futuristic StandArt – the first Russian Design Hotels member – is one of the chicest hotels in the city by a country mile. As well as offering the most stylish rooms in town, it has a sleek restaurant, an attractive spa and gym, and a conveniently central location just on Pushkin square.
Hand-painted panels and monochrome graffiti wall murals complement the original design of the StandArt Hotel, and open the door to the unexplored realms of new worlds. Moscow-born artist Stanislav Tratsevskiy employs his erudition in art and cultural history to create impressive pieces of art for the hotel that is as comfortable as it is progressive.
The result is a spectacle that prefers fluidity over fixity in terms of its visual identity, much like Tratsevskiy himself. With the StandArt, he explains, “I wanted to create universal spaces that appeal to everyone. Art is my way of communicating with people from all over the world.” Indeed, the hotel is a work of art as a whole, telling a story through its architecture and design. But in keeping with Tratsevskiy’s love of comic books—an art form composed of individual but inextricable components—each element of the hotel also tells a story.
The rooms are inspired by 1950s sensibility, with designer furnishings, tasteful colour schemes and mod cons such as ETRO bedding and bath accessories, French cosmetics Lanvin and Magic Mirror TV. Classic rooms are generously sized, have splashy colours and come with minibars, work desks, Nespresso machines and dapper bathrooms with showers and tubs; larger Deluxe rooms have more natural tones, beds built into wooden capsules and views over Strastnoy Boulevard and Pushkin Square.
The elegant Luxury suites have a spacious sitting room, two separate bathrooms and the Grand Suite has enough space for an additional dining room and can be combined with a Luxury suite. Furnishings throughout are contemporary with plenty of curves and vintage twists.
Guests will get a real sense of Moscow with a swanky second-floor restaurant called YURA, rebranded and restyled in 2019. The culinary creations at StanArt Moscow, under the guidance of executive chef Andrey Korobyak, offer plenty of variety. Estonian roots had a strong influence on his gastronomic style. For many years, working in Europe and America, he invariably followed the canons of Scandinavian cuisine. After moving to Russia, Andrei continued to make his way through fashionable gastrotrends, again and again offering guests Nordic in all its ascetic splendour.
YURA matches dishes such as salmon with cauliflower purée and mussel sauce with panoramic views of Pushkin Square through the large windows. The central bar area knocks out classic cocktails and a mix of old and new world wines, and is bookended by a couple of private rooms that can be set up for meetings, and has views throughout onto Pushkin Square.
Breakfast spans fresh vegetables and fruits, amazing pastries and dairy products from local farms, as well as egg dishes, variety of local caviar, and traditional Russian syrniki with cottage cheese. You will love them for sure!
When guests are ready to unwind, StandArt is home to a cosy Spa centre, built and designed to the highest specification, and with a wide selection of massages and treatments, as well as a high-tech gym.
One of the most favorite parts of StandArt’s SPA studio is aqua zone. The sauna and hammam zone with the elegant SPA lounge is a place for the ultimate tranquil experience.
