Why is it the best? Because Moscow’s WTC, the largest and so far Russia’s only business centre offering a full range of services and facilities, has been leading the Russian market for the past 30 years. In due time it was the first and only such centre in the country; its founding fathers were leaders of the Soviet Union and United States, Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon.
The WTC honours both tradition and modern business requirements. Its tenants and loyal customers are over 500 largest and well-known national and international corporations, which value the centre’s traditional quality services and security it provides.
Today Moscow’s WTC is the only architectural complex which occupies an area of 200,000 sqm (2.15mn sq f) and comprises two top class office towers, a congress centre, a 575-room deluxe hotel Crowne Plaza, an apartment hotel Mezhdunarodnaya-2, with a total area of 49,000 sq m (over 500,000 sq ft) and a parking lot for 1,300 cars. It also has a business centre, luxurious fitness and health clubs, a variety of shopping outlets, restaurants, bars and a beauty parlour.
The WTC’s tenants can work using over 500 business services offered by the centre, as well as relax without leaving the area.
In 2009 another 30-storey Class A office building will be commissioned, as well as a 20-storey hotel with club suites for business executives, and several underground levels of parking for 700 cars.
This should complete WTC’s development and expand its floor space to 270,000 sq m (2.9mn sq f).
However, the centre won’t stop improvement.
WTC CEO Valery Serov said: “We are planning to modernise one of the hotels and one of the office towers. The other buildings either have already been renovated or are new”. “The centre keeps up with modern standards despite its respectable age and history,” he added.
Moscow’s WTC is a full member of the World Trade Centres Association (WTCA), which includes 300 WTCs all around the globe, and one of the 72 centres whose services have been certified by WTCA as meeting its quality standards. WTC Moscow successfully passed WTCA certification, being assessed on seven categories of services and got a silver quality certificate.
Moscow’s WTC is also amember of ICCA, the International Congress & Convention Association, the globalmeetings industry network. It is a member of AIPC, the International Association of Congress Centres, and of the Russian Union of Exhibitions and Fairs. Russia’s convention and exhibition industry is showing booming growth, and WTC remains a prime site for exhibits, presentations, congresses and other events.
Last year, the WTC’s main auditorium, or the Congress Hall, hosted 690 major events attended by over 350,000 business leaders, scientists, politicians and public activists from 70 countries. This year’s numbers are expected to be even higher. Overall, over the 30 years of operation, the WTC has been the venue of over 9,000 events, including preliminary G8 and APEC summits, presentations by former President Vladimir Putin and incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev, debates between business leaders and government officials.
Its visitors and customers included presidents and prime ministers of many countries, and the world’s most renowned politicians including Margaret Thatcher, Henry Kissinger and Helmut Schmidt.
Curiously, football players of Manchester United who played Chelsea in Moscow this year also stayed at the WTC.
Therefore, the WTC staff have good reason to claim that 12 Krasnopresnenskaya is the best Moscow location, and not only for businessmen.
