Welcome on a tour of Hotel Gästis' 18th century basement, which nowadays houses our newly built spa establishment. This unique, tiled palace (approx. 75 000 tiles and clinker) is made up of an entire range of large and small rooms with the replica of the Lenin baths as the centre.

The welcoming entrance with our harsh attendant Hashem at the bottom of the stairs is in connection with the changing rooms and toilet. The beautiful mirror is from the 1820's and the Jugend chandelier from the 1910's. Hence a mixture of styles!

After yet another few steps down, we find two rooms for relaxation of different character. One of the rooms allows the possibility to watch television, while the other requires silence. Only tranquil music and the crackling fire is heard.

Naturally, also this part of the book hotel Gästis offers a generous selection of magazines and books.

From here, you also have access to the treatment area with massages and treatments in a relaxing atmosphere. The waiting room's old double washbasin from Rörstrand makes us particularly happy.

Down to the bathing area itself you will find the stunning backstairs with the lamp from the film Gorky Park in the centre.

The Lenin Baths with a pool, cold bath, steam bath and foot bath is a replica of the baths that originally were built in the basement of the girls' boarding school Smolny in St. Petersburg 1806-08. This is where the provisional revolutionary government moved when they came into power through the October Revolution in 1917. Until March 1918, when the government moved to Moscow and the Kremlin, Lenin was an often seen guest of these baths. His seat was always the same, in the back left corner of what is a bubble bath with us, but was a Russian hot bath there.

In the niche behind the pool, a bust of the creator of the bath, the Italian architect Quarenghi, originally was enthroned.

This was only replaced in the 1950's for a bust of Lenin in connection with a renovation of the baths, when it also officially gained the name The Lenin Baths.

As such, it lived on until the beginning of the 1990's. It was primarily frequented by party officials and workers and civil servants of great merit who then used Smolny as a centre for recreation.

Today, the baths are closed and the house is used by the municipal administration of St Petersburg. During a trip to Leningrad in 1983, this bath's creator was still able to use the Lenin Baths, however, without the permission to sit in Lenin's seat in the back left corner of the pool. In this replica of the Lenin Baths, you are, however, allowed to sit anywhere you like.