Panoramic view on The Radisson Royal Hotel, on a bend of the Moskva River. It still maintains its historic name of Hotel Ukraina. The hotel opened on May 25, 1957
It was designed by Arkady Mordvinov and Vyacheslav Oltarzhevsky, and is the second tallest of the neoclassical Stalin-era "seven sisters" (198 m (650 ft), with 34 stories). It was the tallest hotel in the world from the time of its construction until the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel opened in Atlanta, Georgia, United States in 1976. Construction on the low river bank meant that the builders had to dig well below the water level. This was enabled by an ingenious water retention system, using a perimeter of needle pumps driven deep into the ground.