100 years tonight – this very night – the Russian Army sided with the Bolsheviks, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and the Russian Empire fell. Shortly after, Count Alexander Illyich Rostov – recipient of the order of Saint Andrew, member of the jockey club, master of the hunt and sometime poet – was condemned to a life under house arrest in the famously luxe Hotel Metropol.

Damian talks revolution, room service and ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ with Amor Towles. Recorded live in the Lancaster Ballroom at the Savoy Hotel – appropriately enough for a book about a man trapped in a luxurious hotel.

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