If hotels had to keep their history in cups, then the cup of the Cosmos would quite literally be overflowing and making a big mess of the surrounding area. The building itself was designed by a crack team of Soviet and French architects for the 1980 Moscow Olympics; to commemorate this collaboration, in 1996, a large and odd statue of Charles de Gaulle was unveiled in the hotel's forecourt.
In between 1980 and 1996, some other famous things happened: in 1989, the hotel hosted the first Miss Charm contest (the USSR's answer to Miss Universe), and, some years later, the chess champion Garry Kasparov stayed in one of its twin rooms (one of his best moves).
Similar to the other 1,800 rooms in the hotel, ours had quite a view. That big road is called Prospekt Mira. At night, Prospekt Mira looked like this:
Also at night, the Cosmos switched on its colossal neon sign, and turned up its heating so high that (given a bath tub and the right utensils) I'd have been able to bain-marie myself.
But forget about all that stuff; without a doubt, my favourite part of the Cosmos had to be the toilet phone.
I thought about making a joke about this, but come on. Toilet phone writes itself.
3 comments:
Was breakfast included in your accommodation?
Indeed it was, Rod, only I wish it hadn't been. I don't know—all part of the experience, I guess.
We were on a tour and I can't remember if it was the breakfast in Moscow or the one in St Petersburg but it was really 3 meals in one...something like getting breakfast, lunch and dinner menus and merging them, plus cheese cake, or strawberry etc as one might have for afternoon tea. Quite mind boggling.
Our tour lunch and dinner weren't quite so grand - dinner esp was either chicken or veal and chips (kind of alternated from night to night).
Post a Comment