Count Alexander Rostov Hotel Metropol, the lobby
Book One
The whole novel turns on this address. Stripped of his estate and sentenced to house arrest, the count is escorted back to the grand hotel where he already lives and told he will be shot if he ever steps outside. The Metropol is a real belle-epoque hotel of 1905, on the corner off Theatre Square, and its lobby, front desk and revolving doors become the edge of his entire world.
Book One (1922)
explicit Named in the book.
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Count Alexander Rostov The belfry room, sixth floor
Book One
On the day of his sentence the count is marched up to a cramped, sloping room under the eaves, a converted servants' quarters near the old bell tower, and made to leave his belongings behind. This attic becomes his home for the next thirty years. It is a fiction set inside a real building, tucked into the Metropol's top floor.
Book One (1922)
inferred Towles moves the count from a grand suite up to a small former servants' room in an attic off the belfry. The Metropol is real but this exact room is the novel's invention, so it is sited within the hotel's upper floors.
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Count Alexander Rostov Red Square and the Kremlin walls
Book One
A few minutes' walk from the hotel stand the red brick walls of the Kremlin and the vast expanse of Red Square, the seat of the new government that has just tried and confined the count. Their nearness is the point: the machinery of the state that rules his fate sits almost next door. Both are real, at the heart of Moscow.
Book One (1922)
explicit Named in the book.
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