Grand Hotel
The Grand Hotel was built in the 1830s on what was then Torgova Square (today Pavlovska) — among the first stone buildings of the still-developing city centre. The founder was the merchant Akim Pavlov, who invested heavily in the imposing three-storey structure; later his son Nikita Pavlov added a fourth floor, making the building one of the largest and most prominent in Kharkov. The hotel was also known as the "European Hotel" or "Grand-Hotel Prosper."
In its hundred rooms the walls were hung with silk fabrics, the furniture worked in costly hardwoods and the floors laid with carpets; guests included members of high society, foreign diplomats and wealthy travellers. The ground floor housed an elite restaurant with refined cuisine, popular not only with the hotel's guests but also with the local elite who came here for the evenings. In the early 20th century the French vice-consulate took up rooms in the building: in 1910 the vice-consul Louis Rabu lived in one of them, later succeeded by Marinasse Kavalass.
With the outbreak of the Civil War the Grand Hotel became a centre of military activity — the headquarters of the Volunteer Army was installed here. After the Bolsheviks took the city the building reverted to a hotel, now under the name "Spartak." The Grand Hotel did not survive the Second World War: in 1943 it was completely destroyed during the fighting for the city. A monument to the independence of Ukraine was later raised on the site and stood until 2012; today only pre-revolutionary photographs and guidebook records of the hotel remain.
