The site of the hotel was formerly occupied by a three-story building, dating to the late 18th Century, which became the property of the Lvov princely family in the 1870s.

[2] It was designed by Russian-Swedish architect Fyodor Lidval, who developed a style based on Art Nouveau and also influenced by Neoclassical architecture.

[3] The Astoria was built to host tourists visiting Russia for the Romanov tercentenary, a huge celebration of 300 years of Russian imperial rule in May 1913.

[1] Wayss & Freytag placed the property nominally under the ownership of its French manager, Louis Terrier, but it was soon established that the hotel was, in fact, owned by a company in a combatant country.

During the October Revolution, on November 8, 1917, a detachment of Red Guards stormed the hotel and captured a number of military officers and cadets.

[1] American journalist John Reed stayed in the hotel during this period, as he reported on the Revolution and wrote his book Ten Days That Shook the World.

[2] The Astoria was handed over to Intourist, the state-run tourism monopoly, in 1926, and converted back to a luxury hotel hosting mainly foreign visitors.

[9] The hotel's many famous guests have included Lenin, Isadora Duncan, H. G. Wells, Alexander Vertinsky, Prince Charles, Luciano Pavarotti, Madonna, Elton John, Truman Capote, John Denver, Jack Nicholson,[2] Vladimir Putin, Alain Delon, Gina Lollobrigida, Marcello Mastroianni, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Pierre Cardin, Jean Paul Gaultier, Margaret Thatcher, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair and U.S. President George W.