A Gentleman in Moscow

Moscow, 1922–1954. Count Alexander Rostov is declared an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal and sentenced to lifelong house arrest in the Hotel Metropol, across from the Kremlin. Banished from his grand suite to a cramped attic room, he must build a meaningful existence within the hotel’s walls. Friendships with staff and guests—including the spirited Nina, actress Anna Urbanova, maître d’ Andrey and chef Emile—gradually replace the rank and estates stripped from him.

As Soviet society changes through political repression, war and reconstruction, the Metropol becomes a contained world through which national events enter in fragments. Rostov’s unexpected responsibility for a young girl named Sofia gives his restricted life a new purpose and forces him to consider what freedom, loyalty and family mean under an authoritarian state. The novel follows more than three decades of Russian history through the daily rituals, relationships and quiet acts of resistance of one man who refuses to let confinement define him.