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19-489: The hotel is named for the previous Absheron Hotel which formerly stood on this site. It was established by the Soviet Intourist monopoly in 1985 and had 343 rooms on 16 floors. It was entirely demolished in 2009. The current JW Marriott -managed hotel of 237 rooms on 21 floors was built on the site and opened on July 3, 2012. It was described by author Ken Haley as an "imposing" hotel, with some rooms that have

38-596: A "magnificent view of the city square and the sun-spangled expanse of the world's largest lake". This article about a hotel or resort in Asia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article about a building or structure in Azerbaijan is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Intourist Intourist ( Russian : Интурист , a contraction of иностранный турист , "foreign tourist" also Goskomturist ( Russian : Госкомтурист ))

57-534: A chance to play with foreign musicians. The popular ensemble Druzhba from Leningrad became the winner of the First Prize in popular music, thanks to its lead singer, Edita Piekha , the star of the 1950s who could sing in many languages. Edita Piekha , Vladimir Troshin and international guests of the festival together performed the popular song Moscow Nights . Reverend Warren McKenna, Joanne Grant , Sally Belfrage , and folk singer Peggy Seeger attended

76-724: A member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union , was the first Soviet official to visit the United States after the US granted recognition to the Soviet Union. In 1933 Aron Sheinman started work for Intourist in London and filled the post of Director from 1937 to 1939. When he was dismissed he refused to return to Moscow, and gained British citizenship later that year. Things presumably went along as planned: "In

95-526: The KGB . In 1953, after the death of Stalin, the decree banning Soviet citizens from marriage to a foreigner was abolished. Intourist began selling packages to foreigners in 1955. It was "charged with obtaining hard currency to be used for imports of machinery that would help make the Soviet Union independent of global markets." In 1956, the USSR received 56,000 tourists. In 1963, it received 168,000 tourists. By

114-416: The 1957 Moscow Youth Festival , the 1959 Sokolniki Exhibition , and the 1980 Moscow Olympics , and he seems to accept the school of thought, "popularized by New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman ’s paeans to globalization, ... that international exchange is the handmaiden of liberalization and erosion of authoritarian regimes", by which means ultimately Intourist can be seen as an unwitting cuckoo in

133-841: The KGB headquarters for $ 35". The enterprise was privatised that year along with many other state-owned businesses during Boris Yeltsin 's tenure. In 1992, Intourist became the first Russian company to acquire an American company when it acquired a 75% interest in Rahim Tours of Florida. In 2011, British tour operator Thomas Cook Group plc acquired a 50.1% interest in Intourist for $ 45 million. The company sought to gain access to Russian travelers going abroad. Intourist had handled 600,000 passengers in 2009. On November 15, 2019, Neşet Koçkar, chairman of Turkish tour operator Anex Tours, acquired Intourist from Thomas Cook's liquidators. Although

152-522: The Soviet Union was not enamored of competition, Intourist did have competition in the form of Intourbureau and the Soviet Central Council of Tourism and Excursions. The New York Times described this competition as "tiptoed onto Intourist's turf." Quaker-founded Goodwill Holidays helped sell Intourbureau' s competing offerings, which included use of hotels owned by the Soviet Central Council of Tourism and Excursions. They were

171-693: The Soviet nest. One of Intourist's flagship properties was the Intourist Hotel in Chișinău, later known after the fall of the Soviet Union as the National Hotel . In 1990, Intourist (as the exclusive travel agency in the Soviet Union) held a dominant position in the market with 110 hotels and handled 2 million foreign tourists per year. By early 1992, "tourists could get a guided tour of

190-410: The competition to Intourist's hotels that were staffed by employees described by an American tourist as being "as friendly as wardens at the state pen." This competition to provide better service was to encourage visiting by non-Soviet unions, albeit not in a way that would save money. In 1991 a Los Angeles Times writer suggested another option: obtain information from recent immigrants. Despite

209-456: The early 1970s, it received 4,000,000 travelers yearly. Visits were subject to "prior coordination" and excluded "specifically designated zones" such as a limited number of neighborhoods in a limited number of cities. This is a "principle that would define Soviet regulation of foreign travel for all categories of foreigners until 1991" and beyond. Special note is taken in Hazanov's thesis of

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228-402: The festival as part of the US delegation and later went on a propaganda trip to Communist China. The festival's sports program featured an athletics competition . After the festival there was a significant influx of Afro-Russians . The mixed race African descended children were called festival children because of their appearance and timing of their birth. This article related to

247-537: The foreigner and shielded him from the vagaries of Soviet material life, and above all, the psychological costs of 'routine surveillance'... and the barriers the Soviets erected between foreigners and unvarnished (and uncomfortable) truths about the Soviet Union." Hazanov propounds that the Soviet state apparatchiks at Intourist had a "commitment to authoritarianism and social discipline as an instrument of geopolitical resistance." Indeed there were ties between Intourist and

266-430: The late Stalin era, the number of foreigners visiting the Soviet Union dropped to nearly zero" as state officials actively discouraged travellers. The scholar Alex Hazanov writes in his dissertation on Intourist that "in the alternate universe that was the Soviet Union, the 'giant squid' of the Soviet state [would] engulf the traveler.. [There were] myriad ways in which the Soviet tourist monopoly, Intourist, both hindered

285-582: The name Intourist having a strong link to service "as friendly as wardens at the state pen", attempts have been made to be even better than the (prior) competitor, Intourbureau in the eyes of "a hesitant traveling public." 6th World Festival of Youth and Students The 6th World Festival of Youth and Students was held from 28 July to 5 August 1957 in Moscow , capital city of the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . The festival attracted 34,000 people from 130 countries. This became possible after

304-446: The political changes initiated by Nikita Khrushchev . It was the first World Festival of Youth and Students held in the Soviet Union. The Khrushchev reforms, known as Khrushchev Thaw , resulted in some changes in the Soviet Union. Foreigners could come for a visit, and people were allowed to meet foreigners, albeit only in groups under supervision. Soviet foreign language students acted as interpreters. A minor international incident

323-580: The stake from the British Official Receiver . Intourist was founded on April 12, 1929, as the "All-Russian Joint-Stock Company for the Acceptance of Foreign Tourists" ( Russian : Всероссийское акционерное общество по приему иностранных туристов ВАО «Интурист» ). Intourist was responsible for managing the great majority of foreigners' access to, and travel within, the Soviet Union. In 1933, the president of Intourist, Wilhelm Kurz ,

342-695: Was a Soviet then Russian tour operator, headquartered in Moscow. It was founded on April 12, 1929, and served as the primary travel agency for foreign tourists in the Soviet Union . The former GRU military spy Viktor Suvorov stated that Intourist was run by the KGB . It was privatized in 1992 and, from 2011, was 50.1% owned by the British Thomas Cook Group until its collapse in September 2019. In November 2019, Anex Tours acquired

361-494: Was provoked around the attendance of left-wing Iraqi writer Ga'ib Tu'ma Farman at the festival. The Iraqi government revoked Farman's citizenship while he was abroad, effectively stranding him in Moscow as a stateless person. This situation was resolved by the intervention of the Chinese delegation who agreed to officially invite Farman to Beijing. He went on to work for Foreign Languages Press . Jazz musician Aleksei Kozlov had

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