About Hotel and Casino Intourist Palace:
The original five-storey building of “Hotel Intourist Palace” erected in 1939, was designed by the well-known architect in the thirties of the Soviet period of time A. Shchusev. On the site of the present day hotel there was the unique orthodox St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which to its architectural significance and rare beauty had been included in the number of the most famous Cathedrals in the world. Laying of foundation and sanctification ceremony of Cathedral was going on in presence of Russian Emperor Alexander III and his family members on September 25, 1888. The Cathedral had been acting from the end of 19th century till 1936 and was knocked down in the course of atheistic campaign of soviet period. The foundation of Cathedral became the basis of a new building “Hotel Intourist Palace” Just this hotel was chosen for the significant meeting of heads of the governments of three allied powers but the last moment the meeting place was transferred to Yalta. Within 65 years of its existence the hotel underwent major overhaul and redesign in 1979-1980 and 2005-2006. The distinctive feature of hotel building in its initial intention remains the original semicircular hotel façade facing immediately the Maritime Park and the alley leading to the main colonnade of Batumi Boulevard.
