On the first of January 1897 The Trade House of the Ivanovs brothers opened the "Big Central hotel" in Elizaveta Ivanovna Subbotina’s rented house. This day may be considered as the date of foundation, birthday of the "Bristol-Zhiguly" hotel. The choice of hotel location is not casual – hotel owners thought that the best advertisement for hotels was their location.
There were 60 comfortably furnished (in 1904 "newly repaired") rooms with a cost from 75 kopeikas (in 1907 from 1 ruble) to 6 rubles per night in this one of the most prestige hotels in Samara in 1897-1907.
In 1904 there were already bathrooms with hot water, electricity lighted the building, and one could call there by a telephone №1-92 (to reserve a room, a table in the restaurant or a banquet). The clients were taken to the hotel from the railway station and river ports (and back) by an omnibus. The staff in the hotel spoke French, English, German, Spanish and Polish. Messengers and a lift were at customers’ service.
The police looked after all hotels and restaurants to be kept tidy, after linen to be changed regularly and after repair to be realized. Against the owners of the "Big Central Hotel" (actually not only against them, there were other victims) their competitors used forbidden methods: they bribed cabmen, who told various fables about the competed hotels ("there were never vacant rooms, it was dirty, a lot of tips were taken and there were a lot of thefts").
The "luxury" restaurant were considered as the best in Samara. It worked for the hotel customers offering breakfasts a la carte from 11:00 a.m. and dinners and suppers to 2:00 a.m., and it had separate rooms and a billiard for common customers since 1900. A Moscow cook managed the kitchen, exquisite drinks and snacks were given. Halls of the restaurant (usually there were 2 of them – common and banquet) were surrounded with tropical plants. Charitable evening parties and concerts were often held in the banquet hall, the German community gathered for their evenings.
Evdokim Osipovich Jurin, the rights candidate, titled adviser (in 1911) and a notary, organized a large construction not far from the "Big Central Hotel". The two Jurin’s houses were reconstructed in 1907 into one three-storied house on Dvoryanskaya (now Kuybishev str., 105) in "the late modern" style. The new building was situated 4 houses closer to the Alekseevskaya square (now the Revolution square) than the old hotel of the Ivanovs brothers.
In the same 1907 the Ivanovs brothers’ Trade House moved their "Big Central Hotel" from the rented E.I. Subbotina’s house to the new Jurin’s one. The new hotel with the restaurant with the old name opened on the first of January 1908 and worked there permanently till 1913.
Despite the removal of the Ivanovs’ hotel from Subbotina’s house the building hotel history continued even on the higher level. The building of the former "Big Central Hotel" in 1908-1909 was thoroughly repaired and reconstructed. Despite the cosmetic character of faзade repair even the building style changed. The cottage from the "classicism" style was reconstructed into the "decadence" style (or "the late modern" style) by a project of Michael Fomich Kvyatkovskiy, an architecture and a technical builder.
The building remained 3-storied, only the left part of the wing with an arc entrance on the ground floor and the narrow central part got the third floor.
The "Grand Hotel" (1908-1917)
The 3-storied "Grand Hotel" with a restaurant, which belonged to Nikolai Nikolaevich Shemyakin, was opened in the reconstructed building on the 16th of November , 1908. This date may be considered as the second birthday of the "Bristol-Zhiguly" hotel.
The arms-optical Neiman’s shop with a sign in the form of a huge pince-nez with blue glasses was located on the ground floor of the "Grand Hotel" as before. The hotel rooms were presented as "the best and furnished luxuriously". The owners had their own dynamo-machine permitted by the authorities that’s why the hotel had electrical illumination.
Automobiles and commissioners were sent to every steamer and train. Live tropical plants adorned the entrance hall, restaurant halls and other inner rooms. The singer F. I. Shalyapin, popular in Russia that time, stayed in the hotel in 1909. Besides the cycle of concerts once he gave an improvised concert from the balcony of his apartments to the public, crowded under his windows. The hotel with the restaurant worked without any serious changes till the revolution events in 1917.
The "Bristol" hotel (1903-1917)
A 3-storied building on Dvoryanskaya str. (now Kuybishev str., 78) was built in 1903.
The hotel "Bristol" was located on the first and on the second floors of the building. A restaurant in the "Bristol" was opened on the 16th of January, 1911. Besides the proper menu the clients were entertained with concert programs. The administration cared for the fact that every client would have fun "with all his heart" without bothering others.
The "Bristol" and the "Grand Hotel" in soviet times (1917-1941)
"The Whole Samara" reference book in 1925 showed hotels, retained from the pre-revolutionary times, including the "Bristol" (with the changed address Sovetskaya str. 86). The "Grand Hotel" didn’t work at all that time (evidently some institution occupied its building).
In 1930s the former "Grand Hotel" began to work again as a hotel. By 1936 Samara hotels had been named by numbers: the "Grand Hotel" became "The Second", the "Bristol" – "The Fifth". The "number" names were more pleasant to the soviet authorities evidently.
The "Zhiguly" in The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945)
In a period of The Great Patriotic War the hotel was named the "Grand Hotel" as before for the foreigners who stayed there quite often.
In October just after making a decision about the USSR capital removal to Kuybishev the diplomatic missions arrived in the "emergency capital" by special trains.
The foreigners were accommodated in cottages and buildings built before the revolution. The hotel became one of these places of accommodation.
The writer A.N. Tolstoy evacuated to Kuybishev had suppers in the hotel’s restaurant in 1942 though he lived in the "Natsional" hotel.
In 1942 the diplomatic mission of the general Sharl de Goll’s "Free France" movement representatives, which got as a residence not a detached cottage but several rooms in the "Zhiguly" hotel, moved to Kuybishev.
In 1943 the threat to Moscow became so insignificant that the diplomats and capital organizations were returned to Moscow. The "emergency capital" turned into usual rear city and the hotel rooms became rented by other guests.
The "Zhiguli" hotel (1945-2002)
Faceless name "The Second" was changed by the modern "Zhiguly" already after the war. On the 22nd of February, 1978 a memorial board, saying that the headquarter of the first Samara rifleman division which was the first who took part in Samara liberation in 1918, was hung.
Now the "Zhiguly", the oldest of Samara hotels, evolves successfully and these efforts are very perspective. The name "Zhiguly" is one of success’s guarantees. The interesting and hard-to-explainable fact: for 48 names for pre-revolutionary hotels there wasn’t any in which the words "Samara" or "Zhiguly" were used. Most likely such names didn’t attract clients who wanted to get in touch with "metropolitan" (even though in a name) service quality. It’s pleasant that this tradition is gone to the past and now the hotel attracts the city guests not with bothering widespread but with its unique, "local" name.
Dear guests!
We glad to inform you on opening of a new conference hall
"Nahimovsky"
The given hall is ideally suited for carrying out of the important meetings, negotiations, actions, общесветнных meetings, and also banquets and buffet tables.
Welcome!