HOTEL MOSKVA TESTIMONY OF AN ERA

           The Moskva Hotel has been located in the heart of the Serbian capital for over a century.

           The building was designed by architect Jovan Ilkić (1857-1917) and a team of architects from Saint Petersburg. The deadline for submitting projects was the end of January 1905, and the work was to be supervised by six architects: two from Russia, two from Austria-Hungary and two from the Kingdom of Serbia (professors of the Belgrade Great School, Andra Stefanović and Nikola Nestorović). The construction of the palace began in March 1905, and it was built by craftsmen from Crna Trava. It was the largest privately-owned building in the Kingdom of Serbia, located about 100 meters from the royal court, in Terazije Street. The building had the inscription Palata Rossia upon its walls. And so its story began…

           Over 40 million people have passed through the hotel from its establishment until today, and about 5 million guests have awakened in its rooms. Many of these are extremely well-known and renowned individuals: Nikola Pašić, Branislav Nušić, Duke Živojin Mišić, who drank tea in a silver-handled glass in the Moskva teashop, Leon Trotsky, then a reporter from the Balkan wars for the Pravda newspaper, before becoming a Bolshevik, Maxim Gorky, Tagore, the Indian poet and philosopher, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas and many others.

           Hotel Moskva can also boast a Hall of Fame with photos of famous guests to honour their memory.

           However, the general public is not familiar with the fact that the fruitful history of the hotel also includes three famous Serbs who resided there or were regular guests at the Moskva teahouse; accordingly, the Hall of Fame should also incorporate their photos. These are Danica Pavlović Barilli, mother of the famous Serbian painter Milena Pavlović Barilli; Serbian scientist Mileva Marić Einstein (first wife of Albert Einstein); and world-renowned scientist of Serbian origin, Milutin Milanković.

           The mother of our famous painter, Danica Pavlović Barilli, adored Hotel Moskva so much that she said to her husband once: “You know Bruno, I vow that whenever I pass through Belgrade, I will always reside in the Moskva.” The newlyweds stayed at the hotel for the first time in 1909, when they left Požarevac via Belgrade, then to Italy by train to visit the Barilli family.

           Danica habitually resided stayed in this hotel until the end of her life. The Moskva was opened on 14 January 1908 in the presence of King Peter I Karađorđević, who was Danica’s second cousin and who provided her with an academic scholarship. She studied music, piano and singing at the Munich Conservatory, where, in November 1905, she met her future husband, also a music student, the Italian-born Bruno Barilli. In that marriage, they had a daughter, Milena Pavlović Barilli.

           From the Milutin Milanković Association from Belgrade and the book “Milutin Milanković and the Defense of the Fatherland,” authored by Slobodan Stojanović, we can learn that Milanković also often sat in the Moskva teahouse. This was in the period (during and between) the two Balkan Wars (1912/1913). Milutin Milanković himself wrote about this period: “It was also the subject of conversation among a few of us professors who would daily gather round a table in the Moskva teahouse. We knew that it was Nikola Pašić who held the solution to that issue in his hands...”

           The Serbian mathematician, also an astronomer, climatologist, civil engineer, a doctor of technical sciences - Milutin Milanković – also had his own table in Hotel Moskva’s teahouse. It was in 1913 when Mileva Marić Einstein and her husband Albert, residing in the hotel in 1913, were sitting at a neighbouring table, not far from that of Milanković, in the Hotel Moskva dining room.

           The Einstein couple traveled to Serbia with their two sons, and after leaving them with Mileva’s parents, they toured Novi Sad together, as well as Titel, Kać, Belgrade and Vienna.

           Five years after the opening of the hotel, they drank coffee in the Moskva café, and it is still being recounted how the famous physicist, accompanied by his wife, mingled with passers-by in the hotel’s garden. Belgraders addressed the Serbian son-in-law as “the gentleman scientist, Marić’s silly son-in-law.”

           Mileva’s father, Miloš Marić, was a very wealthy man, and he helped Albert and Mileva monetarily when they got married. There are receipts saved from which it can be seen that the funds were used to buy furniture for their residence.      

           Albert wrote a letter to a friend in Zurich on 20 September 1913: “Dear Sir, since Monday I have been here in bucolic quietness with my mother-in-law and father-in-law... Tomorrow I am traveling to Vienna with my wife. I have a trapeze performance on Tuesday...”

           The performance on the trapeze was a lecture in Vienna, held on 23 September 1913.

           And so Albert and Mileva traveled from Belgrade to Vienna, leaving the children with their grandparents who soon took them to be baptised. This occurred on the Nativity of Mary holiday in the Nikolajevska Church in Novi Sad, adjacent to 20 Kisačka Street, where the luxurious house of the Marić family was located. The local magazine Zastava narrated: “Yesterday, two little Swiss boys, the sons of Dr. Albert Einstein, a professor at the University of Zurich, and the grandsons of our esteemed friend and fellow citizen Miloš Marić, little Hans and Eduard, were baptized in the Orthodox faith according to the wish of their grandfather Miloš.”

             In Vienna, Mileva attended Albert’s lecture at the Congress of Natural Sciences, mingling with colleagues from all over Europe. This was their last joint visit to Serbia. There is no official data that Albert ever again visited Serbia without Mileva.

           Be that as it may, Danica Pavlović Barili, Milutin Milanković and the married couple Marić-Einštajn traveled all over Europe. They stayed in Zurich, Vienna, Paris, London, Budapest, and other places. However, the Moskva Hotel, where (at that point) Viennese musicians, American jazz singers, gypsy orchestras, military music and the orchestra of the Serbian National Theater took turns entertaining the guests, was their favorite place during their stay in Belgrade.