Alan’s Substack

Exploring fact and fiction in the portrayal of the Metropol Hotel in ‘A Gentleman in Moscow‘ – in print and on TV – by the author of ‘The Red Hotel’ which tells the stories of Brits and Americans who lived there in wartime.

By Alan Philps

· Launched 2 years ago

The story of the war in one village

The story of the war in one village

Russia tolerates high levels of casualties but can't stomach mockery of its army

Jun 9 • Alan Philps

The dissidents who outwitted the KGB

My last post, Beware Room 480, described how the KGB invited Soviet dissidents to the Metropol Hotel in Moscow where, surrounded by faded luxury, they…

Sep 2, 2024 • Alan Philps

Beware Room 480

The KGB was very much at home in the Metropol hotel

Aug 19, 2024 • Alan Philps

Mystery of the Disappearing Fountain

The Shalyapin bar at the Metropol Hotel is the most famous bar in Moscow.

Jul 2, 2024 • Alan Philps

Leaving Russia

Did the count stay, or did he go?

May 22, 2024 • Alan Philps

Death of the Father of Nations

Fact and fiction around the demise of Stalin

May 16, 2024 • Alan Philps

Nocturnal escapades

The origin of Amor Towles’s novel, ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’, lies in a challenge the author set himself: to write a novel in which the hero spends his…

May 10, 2024 • Alan Philps

Orphans of the Gulag

By the time Stalin died in 1953 one in 70 of the population of the Soviet Union was either in prison or a forced labour camp.

May 2, 2024 • Alan Philps