The Crowne Plaza Hotel is a testament to pre-war architecture. Previously known as “Belarus”, the hotel was the finest in pre-war Minsk. Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Jewish musicians who fled from Nazi-occupied Poland were settled here, founding the State Jazz Orchestra of the BSSR under the direction of Eddie Rosner.Emblematic of its time, the melody of the waltz “Blue Kerchief” was composed in one of the rooms of the hotel “Belarus” in 1940.The hotel building burned down during the war, but was restored in 1947. A special room is said to have been designed for Stalin, of which he never partook. In 1987, the hotel became known as “Svisloch”, and since 2008, after major renovations, Crowne Plaza.