It’s a place where one can start a day with a tasty breakfast, accompanied by a glass of sparkling wine, visit a gallery to enjoy a new art exhibition, and spend the night partying at the rooftop bar with an amazing view of Ukraine’s capital — Kyiv’s new Bursa hotel seems to have it all.
Launched in May 2018, the boutique hotel has a modern art gallery, a city cafe and a bar all under one roof, along with 33 modern rooms, each of a different size and design.
And just eight months after opening, Bursa has earned an IIDA Global Excellence Award for “outstanding originality and excellence in the creation of interior design or interior architecture projects.”
The hotel’s minimalistic interior design was created by the Balbek Bureau, founded by Kyiv-based designer Slava Balbek, who worked on the project for over a year.
Vasily Grogol, 24, the executive director of the hotel, says that even though Bursa is a small boutique hotel that looks unpretentious from the outside, on the inside it offers sophisticated design, excellent quality of food and drinks, and great service.
“We represent genuine service: sincere, simple, understandable, and it is top notch,” Grogol told the Kyiv Post.
“We do not sell rooms, breakfasts or cocktails — we give our guests the opportunity to plunge into the lifestyle that we follow,” Grogol says.
Early steps
Grogol, who was born in Russia, but left the county after he had graduated from high school, says he always wanted to run his own hotel and saw the hospitality industry as his calling.
“In general, I have always romanticized the idea of the hotel. This whole concept of people who live together, work under the same roof — I’ve always liked it,” he says.
After school he lived in the Czech Republic, went to study in Switzerland, and then moved to New York. There, he first worked as a front desk agent, a housekeeping manager, and then became the duty manager of a hotel.
After he was hired in 2016 by an investor (whose name was not revealed to the Kyiv Post), Grogol started to develop a feasibility study for Bursa, and eventually moved to Kyiv in 2017.
“I fell in love with Kyiv, and now consider this city to be my home,” Grogol says.
Grogol also says he was inspired by the Chelsea Hotel, one of New York’s best known hotels, which has hosted iconic authors such as Mark Twain,
O. Henry, as well as famous musicians including Patti Smith, Jimi Hendrix, and Edith Piaf.
He took on some of the principles of New York’s Chelsea Hotel to create Bursa — wanting a hotel that would be suitable for everyone, being a perfect place for the creative community, or equally well a venue for a business conference.
“There is a very calm atmosphere without tension and pathos, but at the same time, the highest level of traditional hospitality is preserved,” Grogol says.
The hotel
Located in the historic Podil district of Ukraine’s capital, near Kontraktova Square, Bursa is a complex of four buildings, with the oldest ones, completely renovated and restored, dating to 1818. The architects integrated the old buildings with new ones into a single complex, creating a visual connection between different architectural styles.
“The wall colors, the color of the roof, the windows — everything was restored to what it was before,” Grogol says.
The hotel’s design is based on the “Bauhaus” style, promoting functionality in design using simple geometrical forms with minimum decoration.
Bursa greets its visitors with a neon sign “Hello Again” that combines English letters with Russian ones, incongruously placed on a 200-year-old building.
The first floor of the hotel houses a city cafe called Beliy Shum (meaning “white noise” in Russian) as well as a conference hall and a reception. Apart from the cafe, the hotel also houses a modern art gallery called “Bursa Gallery,” as well as the rooftop bar “1818” where electronic music parties are held.
The hotel’s visitors won’t find any help in carrying their luggage, as Grogol believes his guests are able to do it themselves, which he says makes them feel at home. Still, guests don’t have to carry heavy suitcases up the staircase — an elevator is located right next to the reception desk.
Each of Bursa’s 33 rooms is different, but they also all have some features in common: white walls, lots of lighting, modern furniture made in Ukraine, huge double beds, and either colorful or all-white bathrooms.
This simplicity of design, however, is combined with some extraordinary furniture and facilities, such as bathrooms with transparent walls next to beds, double-decker double beds, and iron support beams right at the room’s entrance.
The hotel rooms are divided into four categories: nice, super nice, wonderful and attic. Attic is the most expensive type of room, with a private terrace. The price of a room ranges from $135 to $400 per night.
New concept
Grogol says Bursa unites hospitality with artistic concepts and offers “a new luxury service,” that people actually need.
“The hotel’s staff will not bother you if you do not want to be bothered,” Grogol says.
According to the hotel manager, Bursa’s staff clearly understands what guests want and try to treat them in a more casual way.
“Our guests don’t want to feel like royalty — they want to be a part of the city, to feel local. So this is what we provide,” Grogol says.
Thus, it is common to see Grogol, or any other Bursa employee, chatting or having a drink with the hotel’s guests.
“Some of the regular features of the hotel world remain, but we’re trying to change stereotypical thinking and bring hospitality in Ukraine to a new level,” Grogol says.
As for the future of Bursa — Grogol says that there are plans to expand to Lviv, a city some 540 kilometers west from Kyiv. His dream is to build a large, not expensive hotel, again with a minimalistic design but “super trendy and very affordable,” with a minimum number of staff, and where everything is very automated.
“We live at a time when people want everything to be different, and Bursa is a brand that will be developed in other Ukrainian cities,” Grogol says.
