The history of Hotel Volna goes back to faraway 1933. Three hotels were built in the city at that time including Hotel Intourist on the Theatre Square and Hotel Russia on the Upper Volga Embankment (Verkhnevolzhskaya Naberezhnaya). Volna is the only hotel which has survived on its historical place and retained its name, history and high standard, which was grounded at the beginning of the previous century.
Excursion into the historical domain.. Early the thirties... Groundswell... New enormous construction...
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| Строительство гостиницы. Восточный фасад. 26.02.1935г. |
Строительство гостиницы. 26.02.1935г. |
A new automobile plant was built within the shortest possible time alongside with a town of bright future. The problem of housing shortage became acute. And a place for a hotel as a required part of a new socialist town was assigned in the center of Avtozavod on one of the main highways going to the historical centre of the city.
The project of Vladimir Orelsky, an architect of Nizhny Novgorod, was accepted for the construction. He designed a hotel consisting of two buildings with a main entrance on their joint. This is a classical model of a building of transitional type representing functionality as the main idea of that time. Mass concrete, metal skeleton, precast structures were used in the construction. Everything was thought over and weighed, nothing needless was included. The Hotel image had prevailing rectangular forms, sharp lines and verified proportions.
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| Фасад гостиницы. 20.07.1936г. |
Веранда гостиницы. 20.07.1936 г. |
Фасад гостиницы. 20.07.1936 г. |
The general appearance of the Hotel and its interiors were generally distinguished by its maximum rationality and a specific decor. The lack of decorative elements and ornament were compensated by colour layout. The brick-red colour, ribbon-like balconies and rounded stairway enclosures of the Hotel were the reflection of philosophic and spiritual valuables of the epoch.
The main construction was started in 1933 and on July 15, 1936 the Hotel opened triumphantly its doors to the first guests.
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| Ресторан «Чайка», 1939г. | Вестибюль гостиницы. 28.08.1936г. |
The Hotel was distinguished by the unique architectural solution, luxurious halls, well-decorated lobbies. One hundred and five rooms of the Hotel were tastefully furnished with beautiful and expensive English furniture. All facilities were provided therein for good rest and work. One might find there a hairdressing saloon, a sun parlor, a billiard-room, recreation lounges where guests might read newspapers, books, play piano and chess. To stay in Volna was prestigious. Restaurant Chaika was opened at the Hotel. It was rather uncommon for that time (restaurants did not meet ideological principles of the epoch). However the restaurant became popular at once.
Many world-known people stayed in Volna. The Hotel rooms «remember» Grigory Ordzhonikidze and Vyacheslav Molotov, Mikhail Kalinin and Anastas Mikoyan and many-many others.
Together with the country and the city the Hotel survived different times and its status was also different.
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| Юго-западный фасад гостиницы. 20.07.1946 г. |
Гостиница. Вид с вышки пожарного депо. 20.07.1936 г. |
Северо-восточный фасад гостиницы. 20.07.1936 г. |
By the time of perestroika the Hotel building became dilapidated. But to live and to develop under new conditions, along with a major repair new areas and the construction of a new hotel complex were required. For this purpose in 1992 the cooperation was started between the Gorky Automobile Plant and Autocentar - Mercur (Zagreb, Croatia). That cooperation was fruitful. A new nine-storey building was built on to the Hotel, which not only kept on and emphasized the architectural integrity of the project without any detriment to the historical image of the city but even set off the old building and brought it out to the foreground.
The elaboration of engineering and finishing works was carried out in compliance under the highest world standards with making provisions for appropriate servicing. The attractive colour layout of the new complex was achieved by the combination of pink and cream tints on the building exterior being «corporate» colours of Hotel Volna.
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Since 1996 it became the European-standard hotel, the first in Nizhny Novgorod, which was awarded the four-star type approval Certificate. And it has been improving to the present time and confirming its first-class service.
The monument of the epoch of constructivism has found a new life having retained a strict classical image with clear straight proportions but principal changes in internal consent. Spacious halls, convenient comfortable rooms, a well-developed infrastructure, plus elegant colour gamma of the Hotel Volna interior, exclusive furniture and individual decoration enable it to retain the leading position on the hospitality service market but remaining as an architectural monument of the epoch of Soviet ascetism.
