Saint Petersburg was constructed in 1703. The first hotel was built in 1719 on a place of Chicherin House in a Nevsky Prospekt 15. It was a Gostiny Dvor (Russian: Гостиный Двор), a gallery where merchants lived, stored the goods and traded in them.
The first modern hotel was opened in 1804 on Bolshaya Morskaya street 23/8. It was called the "Big hotel Paris" (Russian: Большая гостиница Париж). In 1821, regulations governing "hotels, restaurants, coffee houses, and taverns" were introduced.