Kiev, with about 3m people, is the largest European city between Berlin and Moscow, but it has only two internationally branded hotels, a Hyatt and a Radisson SAS, a sign of how far the Ukrainian capital lags other cities in the region.

The main reason has not been a lack of interest on the part of foreign companies, which have been circling Kiev ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, rather it is the result of enormous bureaucratic resistance that has made pushing through any hotel project a Sisyphean task. Coupled with that was a reluctance of developers to devote time, energy and money to hotel projects because of the heady returns that could be made selling residential apartments.