Tea Room

An atmosphere reminiscent of an artistic café has once again settled in the Tea Room.

The oldest of such establishments, Caffè Greco in Rome, was frequented by Gogol and Goethe, Stendhal and Joyce, Nietzsche and Orson Welles. Located in the tourist district, the café became a meeting place and a space for reflecting on what had been seen in the Eternal City.

Curator Vasily Uspensky recognized the similarity to the legendary Roman Caffè Greco, and authentic prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (18th century) depicting the ruins of the Eternal City appeared on the walls of the Tea Room.

They are echoed by sheets from Pavel Shillingovsky's series "Petersburg. Ruins and Revival." Created in 1923, the woodcuts captured the city in a state of devastation after the cataclysms of the revolution and civil war. However, amidst all the disaster, the artist managed to see a special melancholic beauty, reminiscent of the ruins of antiquity, giving hope.

The works of our contemporary, Egor Ostrov, take the discussion of the connection of times to a new level, his work is based on the interpretation of classical art. The images of the divine Raphael, the "Russian Italian" Bryullov, and the singer of ruins Piranesi are interpreted by him in a special author's technique, in which digital art is combined with painstaking manual labor, and the past with the present. The central object of the exhibition is Ostrov's interpretation of Raphael's "Madonna della Seggiola," an old copy of which adorns the main hall of the hotel.

Working hours:
Monday – Sunday
10:00 – 18:00