The present article is the result of a research of the museum collection of illustrated postcards representing the images of old Chișinău hotels in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. It aims to reflect some aspects of hotel life of those times, and also a particular architectural appearance, which, unfortunately, we can admire now only in photographs.

Hotels have been and remain the face of the city. They also reflect the material achievements of urban civilization in Chișinău of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, especially after the installation of telegraph (1860) and construction of the railway line (1870s). This has contributed to the development of trade relations between Bessarabia and Russia, Bessarabia and Europe. Chișinău began to develop as the capital: there have been paved the streets, build public and administrative buildings, opened new factories and plants from abroad. So it is no accident that the owner of the first modern hotel was a Swiss Charles Thomas Selouidenis who in 1874 had rented the building at the intersection of Aleksandrovskaya and Seminarskaya streets (today – the corner of Stephen the Great Blvd and G. Banulescu-Bodoni St.). There was opened the Swiss Hotel, which existed for a long time, even after a change of ownership.

At the beginning of the 20th century the number of hotels in Chisinau has increased substantially, enriching the “geography” of names: Paris, London, Bristol, Grand Hotel, National Hotel, Petersburg, France, etc. Most of them were located in the upper part of the city, near the banking, administrative, legal institutions. Advertisements in the press at the time allow us to see the development of hotel services and a high level of comfort: bright and spacious rooms with beautiful interiors, windows and balconies onto the street, telegraph and electricity, restaurants and cafes with gourmet meals and drinks for guests, stables and coach-houses, etc.

On May 1, 1914 in Chisinau there was opened the most luxurious hotel of the city – the Palace Hotel, owned by a millionaire N. Barbalat. It had 120 rooms and was located in a four-storey building with a restaurant, cafe, elevator, telephone and telegraph. The hotel provided new services in the hotel industry – table setting in the rooms and booking of theater and train tickets.

Time, full of destructive events, and human indifference wiped out these architectural jewels, with the exception of the Swiss and Palace Hotels, which are partially preserved, having lost some features of the exterior.

List of illustrations:
1. Advertisement of the Alexandr Wolkenberg’s shop of stationery.
2. Exterior view of the Swiss Hotel, early 20th century.
3. Exterior view of the London Hotel, early 20th century.
4. Exterior view of the Palace Hotel, early 20th century.
5. Advertisement of the Palace Hotel.
6. Exterior view of the Bristol Hotel (Shumsky’s House), early 20th century.