MOSCOW, May 6 (RIA Novosti) – One of Russia’s best-known concert halls, “Rossia,” will turn into a round-the-clock international press-center for the period of celebrations, that is from 9 a.m. on May 7 to midnight on May 10.

Some 2,500 spectator seats have been removed to give room to 600 desks equipped with computers, the Internet and telephones. In all, 2000 media people will be able to work in this hall simultaneously. Huge monitors will provide live broadcasting of all festive activities.

TV companies can use first floor-foyer booths receiving direct telesignals from all events. The hotel ramp with a view of the Kremlin is outfitted for live transmissions.

Journalists will have access to archive wartime reels, including the 1945 Victory Parade.

Media people coming to Moscow from other countries and Russian regions will be bused from railway terminals and airports to the press-center by special shuttles.

All accredited journalists will get memorable gifts: a military knapsack containing a soldier’s water bottle, ground-sheet, thermal mug as well as a video cassette with movies about the war and a compact disc of wartime songs.

The most numerous American and Japanese media pools will be accommodated, at their request, in special press-center premises.

There will be no problems with catering. The press-center will have its restaurant for 600 seats, with an outdoor terrace looking on the river. A free breakfast, lunch or dinner will be available round o’clock during four days.

Though specializing in Italian quisine, this restaurant will offer during the coming celebrations fusion with Russian, Italian and French dishes. In the morning, journalists will be treated to sausages, omelette, yogurt, bacon, cheese, “pirozhki” and jam. For lunch and dinner, one will revel in various salads, pickled champignons, vegetables and such hot dishes as two types of soups, chicken and potatoes, roasted pile-perch, beef medallions with onion sauce, rice and field mushrooms, spaghetti with tomatoes and barbecue.

For dessert, there is a wide range of cream cakes. Mineral and soda water, coffee, cappuccino, tea and beer will be offered to the guests.

Use of telephones and computers will be also free of charge.

It was a special government resolution to allocate budgetary money for the organization of the press-center.

The Concert Hall “Rossia” is located in the Rossia Hotel designed by Dmitry Chechulin, the architect of the Moscow Komsomolskaya and Kievskaya metro stations.

The hotel is sited in the center of Moscow, a five minutes walk from the Kremlin and the famous St. Basil’s Cathedral, in the Old Town Zaryadye district abundant in old churches and houses.

The Stars Alley in front of the main entrance to the Rossia Hotel bears the names of outstanding Russian actors and singers, such as Klavdiya Shulzhenko, Leonid Utesov, Izabella Yuriyeva, Vladimir Vysotsky, Mark Bernes, Sophia Rotaru, Leo Leshchenko and others—84 names, in all.

The hotel, commissioned in January 1967, occupies an area of 13 hectares. It consists of four 12-storey with a 21-storey part towering in the middle of the northern building.

The hotel which accounts now for 2,700 rooms has accommodated during its existence over 10 million people, including more than two million foreigners.

The Moscow government has taken the decision to pull the hotel down and build on its site a number of hotels for a total of 2,000 rooms, with a concert hall and other premises covering an area of more than 400,000 square meters.

The dismantling of the hotel is to begin in the second half of 2006.