The hotel is located in a prime city location, near the Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace.

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In New York's Adirondack Mountains, inmates break ice on a frozen lake to make a giant winter palace.

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You came here to drink in the grandeur of the Winter Palace, to float down the majestic canals, to be transported to its gilded czarist opulence.

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But despite the enticing swimming pool at the Winter Palace Hotel, the thrilling felucca ride on a windy Nile afternoon with sails billowing, and the bountiful dinners of hummus and salads all the more delightful for being actively encouraged to eat with one's hands, one pressing question remains.

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For a winter weekend out of season, the palace was still relatively busy.

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They used incandescent lamps to display stats, the same technology Daktronics relied on for the next 25 years, through an exclusive contract to provide the scoreboards for the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York, large displays for Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and an electronic voting system for the U.N.

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