Hotel Salute, also known as the other written variation Hotel Salyut, is a hotel that has an interesting architectural style, and it is located in the capital city of Ukraine, Kyiv. Located more precisely on a green hill at the right side of the Dnieper River, it is surrounded by the lush greenery of the Pechersk District, which is the administrative and cultural center of Kyiv.
Designed in 1976 and built by 1984 by the Ukrainian architect Abraham Moiseevich Miletsky, together with N. Slohotska and Vladimir Shechenko, the hotel features 88 comfortable guestrooms of different categories with wonderful views of the UNESCO-protected Kyivo-Pecherska Lavra and also the Dnieper River. In the beginning, the construction project for this interesting building was supported by the Communist Party leadership; however, after the collective refused to add the curator from the party to the list of authors, the construction project slowly began to decelerate.
This is the main reason why the hotel did not complete as initially planned, which at the beginning was supposed to be a skyscraper designed with the application of interesting and cutting-edge construction for that time. Also, the budget for the construction entailed problems, resulting in the building having fewer floors than originally planned, as the plans had to change due to ongoing problems.
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The work of art that we see today is the final result of the “great” direct collision between architecture and the power of the politicians. An interesting feature in the whole structure is the reinforced concrete walls that are counted to 19, which were used instead of using steel cables for support, which made the rooms a little bit smaller, with no ability to expand, thus making the hotel not so effective from the start.
Still, the circular form of the main building is something out of this planet, with 6 floors for the rooms, and there is also a restaurant, conference hall, cafe, bar, and meeting rooms. In the back, what was supposed to be open fire escape stairways, now they are covered with steel frames, so that they won’t be exposed to those who are taking a glance at the hotel.
Nowadays, Hotel Salute, as it is popular among the guests who are visiting the city, is a great example of how political power should not direct the way buildings are built, and the people would continue to marvel at this alluring Brutalist-style architectural masterpiece.
