Ukraine Hotel Kiev

The Ukraine Hotel's high-rise building occupies a dominant position, overlooking the bustle of the city's main plaza. Towering at the edge of the Pechersk Plateau, it literally soars over the Khreschatyk Valley. The Ukraine Hotel was built at the end of the 60s in an epoch of endeavors to avoid ''architectural excess,'' and its exterior therefore appears somewhat plain and ponderous. However, the hotel's windows open onto incomparable views of Kiev's ancient Starokievska Hill, the Dnipro River and its far shore, and the renowed Monastery of the Caves. It was on this site that, nearly a hundred years ago, the first ''high-rise'' building was erected in one-story Kiev. On his own private tract of land on the former estate of F. Mering, the prominent Kiev contractor Lev Borisovich Ginsburg built an eleven-story edifice which Kievites immediately nicknamed ''Ginsburg's skyscraper.'' The project proved lucrative, with the building soon housing 94 large apartments and first-floor shops. Ginsburg's own two-story residence stood in the heart of the territory. The private residence and skyscraper have not survived. They were exploded along with the entire central section of the city in September 1941, when Kiev was occupied by German troops.

Price: £80.75 from Otel