[citation needed] The first round of destruction (1936) cleared the blocks adjacent to Moscow Kremlin for the ramps of Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge.

Construction used the existing foundations of a cancelled skyscraper project, the Zaryadye Administrative Building, which would have been the eighth of what are now referred to as the "Seven Sisters".

In 1956, the Architecture and Planning Department of Moscow approved the task of building the hotel complex, proposed by architect Dmitry Chechulin and engineers N. D. Vishnevsky and A. N.

[4] In 1958, Chechulin went on trips to London and Paris to see the best examples of hotel architecture, as well as consulting with representatives of the American company Hilton.

[2][6] The complex consisted of three restaurants, several cafes, bars and buffets, a Zaryadye cinema, a concert hall with 2,600 seats, a sauna with a swimming pool, laundries, a telephone exchange, a shop, etc.

Due to the difference in relief between Varvarka Street and Moskvoretskaya Embankment, three of the four buildings were built on a high stylobate.

The internal decoration of the Hall used traditional combinations of Russian palace architecture: white marble, bronze and precious wood.

Dismantling of the building began in March 2006 for a planned entertainment complex which would have been loosely based on the design of the old Zaryadye district.

[12][13] The project was to be overseen by British architect Sir Norman Foster and would have included a new, two thousand-room hotel with apartments and a parking garage.

[14] In October 2006, the Supreme Arbitration Court cancelled the results of a tender to reconstruct the Rossiya hotel near the Kremlin.