Top 10 Best Luxury Hotels in Russia - A Curated Guide to Opulent Stays

Russia's grand hotels kept their buildings, their spas and largely their staff — what changed after 2022 are the names on the door. Marriott, Hyatt, Four Seasons and Belmond all ended their Russian management contracts, and several famous properties now trade under new or slightly different names while running much as before. This guide lists the hotels that genuinely deliver five-star service in 2026, what each is called today, and the booking realities that catch foreign guests out.

Moscow

• Hotel Metropol — the 1905 Art Nouveau landmark opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, all mosaics and stained glass, with a breakfast hall under a famous glass dome. The most atmospheric of the historic set (metropol-moscow.ru);
• Hotel National — 1903, directly facing the Kremlin across Mokhovaya Street; ask for a Kremlin-view room, which is the entire point of staying here;
• The Carlton, Moscow — the former Ritz-Carlton on Tverskaya, renamed in July 2022 after Marriott's exit. Same building, same rooftop bar with the best terrace view of Red Square (carltonmoscow.com);
• Four Seasons Hotel Moscow — the rebuilt Hotel Moskva silhouette next to the Kremlin and Manezhnaya Square. Four Seasons the company left in 2022; the hotel kept the name and the standards and now operates independently (thelegendofmoscow.com);
• Ararat Park Hotel — the former Park Hyatt, steps from the Bolshoi; Hyatt departed in 2022 and the hotel now runs under its own name, Conservatory rooftop lounge included (araratparkhotel.ru);
• Baltschug Kempinski — across the river from St Basil's; the postcard view of Red Square from the river-facing rooms is the best in the city;
• Lotte Hotel Moscow — on the New Arbat, run by the Korean Lotte group, one of the few international operators still managing its Russian property; consistently the safest pick for modern (rather than historic) luxury.

St Petersburg

• Grand Hotel Europe — the 1875 grande dame just off Nevsky Prospekt, managed by Belmond until 2023 and now independent; the caviar bar and the L'Europe restaurant's stained-glass ceiling survived every change of management since the tsars;
• Hotel Astoria — on St Isaac's Square under the Rocco Forte flag, a rare case of a Western luxury operator that stayed; smaller and quieter than the Europe, with the cathedral filling the windows.

Beyond the two capitals

Outside Moscow and St Petersburg, true five-star service is concentrated on the Black Sea: Rodina Grand Hotel & Spa in Sochi occupies its own seafront park and stands clearly above the resort crowd. The ski villages above Sochi (Krasnaya Polyana) also carry a cluster of upscale hotels built for the 2014 Olympics — good in season, quiet otherwise.

Booking and payment: read before you book

• Foreign Visa and Mastercard don't work in Russia — you can't pay the bill, the spa or the minibar with them. Hotels that host foreigners know this and will arrange alternatives: payment links processed abroad, bank transfer in advance, or cash on arrival;
• the international booking giants no longer sell most of these properties — book direct through the hotel's own site or by email; English-speaking reservation desks answer normally;
• loyalty points are gone: Marriott Bonvoy, World of Hyatt and similar programmes neither earn nor redeem at their former Russian hotels;
• prices are set in rubles, so the euro or dollar cost moves with the exchange rate — a quoted rate is only fixed once confirmed;
• rooms with the famous views (Kremlin at the National, Red Square at the Baltschug) sell out first and cost noticeably more — if the view is why you're coming, book it explicitly.

The short version: the luxury is intact, the names have shifted, and the payment logistics need one email in advance. Sort that, and a Kremlin-view morning at the National feels exactly as it did a decade ago.