Princess Soraya

1932 – 2001

Former Queen of Iran, a regular of the Vier Jahreszeiten in Munich. 5 hotels of the collection keep track of her.

Her story

Half Persian, half German, Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary was Queen of Iran for seven years before a divorce for reasons of state turned her into the melancholy princess of the illustrated press. In exile she moved between Germany, Italy and France; Munich, where she lived for a while and where she now rests, is also home to the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, which this site’s own chronicle counts among her favourite haunts.

Between Isfahan and Berlin

She was born on 22 June 1932 at the English Missionary Hospital in Isfahan. Her father, Khalil Esfandiary-Bakhtiary, belonged to the Bakhtiari nobility and would serve as Iran’s ambassador to West Germany from 1951 to 1961; her mother, Eva Karl, was a Berliner born in Moscow. Soraya grew up between Berlin and Isfahan, attended boarding schools in Montreux and Lausanne and then in London, and spoke German, English, French and Persian.

Queen on the Peacock Throne

Introduced to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1948, she married him in Tehran on 12 February 1951, in a gown designed by Christian Dior. Her reign was anything but tranquil: in 1953, during the confrontation with Prime Minister Mosaddegh, she followed the Shah into a brief exile in Rome. German-speaking and raised as a Catholic, she was nicknamed by the tabloids “the German on the Peacock Throne”.

Germany, her second homeland, figured prominently in the couple’s travels. On 24 February 1955 they signed the Golden Book of Hamburg, and during that German journey they stayed with her parents in Cologne; Soraya also received the special grade of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic. This site’s chronology of the Vier Jahreszeiten records the imperial couple’s arrival in Munich on 6 March 1955, greeted by crowds outside the hotel.

Divorce and the Vier Jahreszeiten

The marriage produced no heir. Soraya, who refused to share her husband with a second wife, left Iran in February 1958 for her parents’ home in Cologne, and the union was dissolved on 6 April 1958; she kept the title of Princess with the style of Imperial Highness. She spoke of the separation as a sacrifice of her own happiness.

For a while she lived in Munich, during her relationships with the actor Maximilian Schell and later the playboy Gunter Sachs. The Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten on Maximilianstrasse, open since 1858, had once welcomed Empress Elisabeth of Austria; according to recollections gathered by the editor of this site, Soraya was a frequent guest there in the early 1960s and liked to sit in the lobby beneath the cupola, often with her mother Eva, watching the comings and goings.

Actress, then recluse

In France she tried the cinema under her first name alone, appearing in 1965 in I tre volti, directed in part by Michelangelo Antonioni, and in the adventure film She. Her companion, the Italian director Franco Indovina, was killed in a plane crash in 1972. Afterwards she avoided public life, struggled with depression, which she described in her 1991 memoir Le Palais des solitudes, and settled in an apartment at 46 avenue Montaigne in Paris.

According to the founder of this site, she was a pupil in the internet lessons he gave at the Crèmerie de Paris around 2000, where she would look up the websites of hotels she had known and share anecdotes about them; he credits those afternoons with the idea of Grand Hotels of the World.

A grave in Munich

Soraya died in her Paris apartment in late October 2001, aged sixty-nine. After a funeral at the American Cathedral in Paris on 6 November, she was buried on 16 November in the family grave at the Westfriedhof in Munich, beside her parents; her brother Bijan, who died only days after her, joined her there. Her belongings were auctioned in Paris in 2002, and the dispute over her estate dragged on until 2016.

Sources Wikipedia (EN), “Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary” · Wikipedia (DE), “Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiary” · Wikipedia (EN), “Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten (Munich)”

In the grand hotels

1955 March 6: The Shah of Iran and Queen Soraya arrive at the Vierjahreszeiten where they stay for a week and occupy an entire floor. Thousands of people wait outside the hotel upon their arrival.
1963: Princess Soraya stays at the Vierjahreszeiten.
1961 / 1963: Soraya, the former Queen of Iran and one of the most photographed women of that time was a frequent guest of the Vierjahreszeiten. Devastated by the divorce from her still loved husband, Mohammed Reza, the Shah of Iran for « raison d’etat » (she could not have children – an heir to the throne) she had difficulties to find a new sens to her life. She often went to the looby watching the « four seasons » emblem in the cupola while daydreaming about her previous state visit to Munich in March 1958. She also liked to observe people walking through the lobby. Most of the times she was accompagnied by her mother Eva. Sometimes she was also sitting there with her friend Johannes von Thurn & Taxis who cheered her up with endless stories that happened a century earlier to his great uncle Paul von Thurn & Taxis and his great aunt Empress Sissi, some of them taking place in the same spot, the famous Vierjahreszeiten Hotel Lobby. Soraya loved these stories … and a few decades later they were repeated to the editor of this article … Princess Soraya lived in Munich for a while, her house, Opitzstrasse 6 was off Pienzenauerstrasse in Bogenhausen on the other side of the Isar river, a good hour walking distance from the hotel. Sometimes she liked to walk along the Isar river from Bogenhausen to Maximilianstrasse 17. (see also year 1958 and 2000). Princess Soraya in 2000
2000: The former fan of the Vierjahreszeiten lobby, Princess Soraya lived in Paris where she took Internet lessons at the Cremerie de Paris, once the first Internet Cafe in Paris. The Princess was sometimes a little lonely and the internet lessons distracted her, almost every thursday afternoon she came to the cafe located at 15 rue des Halles. From time to time part of the lessons was looking at websites of the hotels she had been to, among them the two Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, the one in Munich and the one in Hamburg. Due to her uncountable stories these lessons were more than fascinating – walking through history with a true witness. Coffee with Winston Churchill, a glass of wine with Konrad Adenauer, a gin tonic with Drought Eisenhauer. Soraya’s hotel anecdotes resulted in the later creation of « Grand Hotels of the World.com« , edited from the Cremerie de Paris by her former Internet teacher. Most of Queen Soraya’s favorite Hotels are listed. Too bad the editor of the website did not take more notes, but little by little the stories come back to his mind. One of Princess Soraya's advise was : « whenever I go to a restaurant or to a hotel lobby. I give a tip the moment I arrive never when I leave. The waiter knows I will not forget him and I’m sure he will well take care of me. »
2001: Soraya sometimes brought fascinating old photographs. One her last visit, probably 2001 October 11 or 18. She gave her teacher en envelope with the words (in German) « Danke für die schönen Internetstunden / Thank you for your lessons, I loved them ... This is something for you, it's not a « pourboire » you need to register all the most iconic and glamorous .com Hotel domain names that are still available … and waybe from time to time you will think about your most untalented internet student ». A few days later, October 26, she had died. Soraya’s envelope was full of 500 French Francs bank notes. We had to find some extremely glamorous .com domains, domain names she would have liked, and whenever we came over one, her present was used to pay for the registration fees … During the early years of the Internet, domains could be registered by « just anybody from anywhere » on a « first comes, first served » base … Registering a fresh domain name was something quite inexpensive, less than 50 French Francs, the price of a « café, maybe a cafe crème in the lobby of a Grand Hotel ». : « Grand Hotels of the World.com », « Palace Hotels of the World.com » , « Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten.com » and a multitude of other generic and super iconic Hotel expressions were registered with her present. And in terms of « domain shopping power » 500 French Francs (152,45 euro) was a significant amount of money. Sorayas photographs and the domain names are kept like little treasures … Princess Soraya at the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten in Munich.

Devastated by the divorce from her still loved husband, Mohammed Reza, the Shah of Iran for « raison d’etat » (she could not have children – an heir to the throne) she had difficulties to find a new sens to her life. She often went to the looby watching the « four seasons » emblem in the cupola while daydreaming about her previous state visit to Munich in March 1958. She also liked to observe people walking through the lobby. Most of the times she was accompagnied by her mother Eva. Sometimes she was also sitting there with her friend Johannes von Thurn & Taxis who cheered her up with endless stories that happened a century earlier to his great uncle Paul von Thurn & Taxis and his great aunt Empress Sissi, some of them taking place in the same spot, the famous Vierjahreszeiten Hotel Lobby.

Princess Soraya lived in Munich for a while, her house, Opitzstrasse 6 was off Pienzenauerstrasse in Bogenhausen on the other side of the Isar river, a good hour walking distance from the hotel. Sometimes she liked to walk along the Isar river from Bogenhausen to Maximilianstrasse 17. (see also year 1958 and 2000).

One of Princess Soraya's advise was : « whenever I go to a restaurant or to a hotel lobby. I give a tip the moment I arrive never when I leave. The waiter knows I will not forget him and I’m sure he will well take care of me. »

This is something for you, it's not a « pourboire » you need to register all the most iconic and glamorous .com Hotel domain names that are still available … and waybe from time to time you will think about your most untalented internet student ».

Soraya’s envelope was full of 500 French Francs bank notes. We had to find some extremely glamorous .com domains, domain names she would have liked, and whenever we came over one, her present was used to pay for the registration fees … During the early years of the Internet, domains could be registered by « just anybody from anywhere » on a « first comes, first served » base … Registering a fresh domain name was something quite inexpensive, less than 50 French Francs, the price of a « café, maybe a cafe crème in the lobby of a Grand Hotel ». : « Grand Hotels of the World.com », « Palace Hotels of the World.com » , « Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten.com » and a multitude of other generic and super iconic Hotel expressions were registered with her present.