St Petersburg, 3 June 2008 — The most highly regarded St Petersburg hotel has announced the successful completion of the third stage of its refurbishment process.  The renovation of the Mezzanine Café's interior is complete, after a total investment of two million dollars.  And 12 unique, luxury one bedroom suites known as 'Belle Chambre' are re-opened after a complete refurbishment and redesign, during which $300,000 was spent on each room.

In 2005, 130 years after the hotel first opened, full-scale renovation began in the Grand Hotel Europe with the aim of perfecting and modernising the hotel whilst preserving its classic and historic 19th-20th-century interiors.  As a result of the three stages of refurbishment, the interiors of 82 Classic Standard Rooms, 115 Classic Superior Rooms and 11 Classic Suites have been timely and successfully renovated.

The main entrance to the hotel has also seen some changes, with the addition of a canopy over the entrance reaching right to Mikhailovskaya Ulitsa.  Part of the pavement at the hotel's entrance is heated, ensuring that in the winter the entrance remains free of snow and ice.  The Caviar Bar restaurant has become even more luxurious, thanks to the composition of decorative crystal elements and opulent furniture with brass ornamentation.

During the third stage of the refurbishment, the Mezzanine Café was given a new style and design.  The café is located right in the heart of the hotel — in St. Petersburg's first atrium.  Over the territory of what was previously an open inner yard, a glass roof that seems almost to be floating covers the original construction.  During the day and in summer evenings, especially the White Nights period, natural light illuminates the café through the glass roof.  As a result of reconstruction from 1989-1991, the atrium became the new compositional center of the hotel, and the Mezzanine Café, protected from bad weather by its glass cupola, became a favourite meeting place for St. Petersburgers.

During the process of refurbishing the café, it was decided to add new decorative elements to imbue the café with the beauty and majestic facades of St. Petersburg's buildings. The hotel's General Manager, Thomas Noll, had the idea of styling the Mezzanine Café on a St Petersburg courtyard.  To make the café even cosier, a marble and sandstone fireplace embellished with stucco panelling depicting classical motifs was added to the atrium.

The lift portals were also renovated and redecorated in marble and sandstone, featuring stylised wrought lanterns replicating traditional St Petersburg street lanterns. The classic St Petersburg streetlamp, which has become such an integral part of the city's architecture and appearance, was designed by the French architect Jean LeBlond, who came to St Petersburg in 1718 at the invitation of Peter I.

To enhance the Mezzanine Café's atmosphere of luxury and sophistication, its transparent glass balustrades were restored, and visitors have been delighted by the elegance and comfort of the new Sheppard wicker furniture brought from Belgium.  One of the atrium's false facades is decorated with large stucco ornamentation and columns, and the café's bar has been completely redecorated and is now faced with black granite, brought especially from Italy for the hotel's reconstruction project. 

The process of perfecting the hotel's rooms is ongoing.  After extensive restoration, 12 renovated one-bedroom 'Belle Chambre' Suites are once again available.  Their restoration was overseen by the French designer Michel Jouannet, who is renowned for his restoration work on the historic interiors of the famous Cipriani hotel in Venice and the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro.

St Petersburg has a long history of French influence, and the importance of that tradition has been re-affirmed with Monsieur Jouannet’s work which is a masterpiece of the synthesis of St Petersburg classical elegance from the time of Tsar Alexander I, and the needs of modern living. The strictness of classicism, however, is always softened with comfortable soft furnishings and silk fabrics.

The suites are all of them large in area – in average about 43-72 m2 (765 ft2), and they offer the rare possibility in today’s hectic world, of relaxing and entertaining in luxurious surroundings, and with the utmost peace and privacy. The views out of the windows are some of the best in St Petersburg, looking out as they do across the bustling Nevsky Prospekt, the tower of the city Duma (parliament) and the Gostiny Dvor historic shopping arcade.

It was Monsieur Jouannet’s intention to reimagine and reinterpret the suites for the most demanding and exacting of international guests, and yet to do so without losing any of the original period Russian details – antique marble fireplaces and rich stucco moulding on the ceilings and walls..... Not only that, but he wanted to give back to the suites their original grand style, and at the same time also to provide them with the most up-to-date technical facilities, and not to compromise with either of his intentions.

How successful he has been can be seen in the way in which at first glance one is aware only of a suite presenting a very beautiful, extremely elegant, interior space, in soothing pastel shades, and with wonderful echoes of domestic Russian decor: the double windows with their heavy brass fittings, the samovar lamps, the inlays of Karelian birch, the Russian historical prints, and the richly-coloured fabrics reproduced especially from a 19th century pattern book. But, look closer and one sees that the exquisitely crafted inlaid writing desk is perfect for writing an old-fashioned postcard home; there are no wires in sight, yet flip up a little lid and there are sockets for writing e-mails on your notebook.

This seamless duality of classicism and technology is present throughout the suites; one sees it, for example, in the spacious entrance halls. There is everything and more that one requires in terms of hanging and storage space, but open the doors and there is a fax machine and a safe to one side, and also a complete private entertaining unit complete with a sink, a well-stocked refrigerator, an Italian coffee machine, a toaster. If one wishes to retire from the world for just a little time, such a suite is the ideal.

For keeping in touch with the outside world, there is a 32 inch flatscreen TV in the drawing room, with high-speed internet access, and, of course, Wi-Fi as standard. Technology comes beautifully into play in the bedroom area where one can enjoy the comfort of an extra-size hypoallergenic mattress.

To walk into the bathrooms in any one of the twelve Belle Chambre Suites , is to walk into a reminder of the Roman Baths built for Catherine the Great, alongside the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo (now Pushkin). For Catherine, the architect Charles Cameron used pale marbles and ceramic intaglios as decorative details, and for the Grand Hotel Europe, Michel Jouannet has used these same materials and motifs. The comparison between the two designers is a just one; they are both masters of their art.

Currently, a project to restore the hotel's Historic floor (Belle Etage) is at the planning stage, along with projects for the famed Krysha Ballroom, which was previously a famed restaurant and is now a function room protected by the Committee for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, like most of the other areas of the Grand Hotel Europe.  All work will be carried out taking into account the historical value of the hotel's exteriors and interiors.  Restoration work is due to be completed by 2010.