History of GUM

The Upper Trading Rows were opened on December 2, 1893. It was an exceptional project for Moscow and for Russia - at that time it was the largest passage in Europe.

Passages - covered shopping streets - were invented at the beginning of the 19th century in Paris after the Napoleonic wars, inspired by the covered bazaars of the Arab East (the oldest of them, Passage du Caire, was built in 1799). But these were just covered shopping streets; they began to gather in department stores only in the second half of the century. The closest analogue of GUM is the Victor Emmanuel Gallery in Milan (1877), but our Moscow passage is one and a half times larger, and in the Milan passage they do not sell on the upper floors - there are no famous Gum bridges.

The Upper Trading Rows were deliberately made as a symbol of New Moscow. They were built on the traditional place of the Moscow marketplace, there were endless shops, "half-shops", "quarter-shops", and although the rows faced the Red Square with the proud classicist facade of Osip Bove, inside it vividly resembled the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul or Damascus.

After the reforms of Alexander II, Moscow was the place of the proud Russian merchants, who bizarrely combined at that moment devout conservatism in the spirit of “autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality” with openness to technical progress and new ideas of capitalism. New Rows was supposed to become the most fashionable and technically advanced European department store, but in the "Russian style".

In February 1889, a competition was held for the design of the Rows, which was won by Alexander Pomerantsev, Roman Klein, who took second place, then built the Middle Trading Rows. Now it seems fantastic, but 4 years later - after the demolition of the old rows, after archaeological excavations, the finds from which were transferred to the Historical Museum - the Rows were opened. Fully finished, with the glass skies of Vladimir Shukhov, with its own power plant, artesian well, with wholesale trade in the basement, with telegraph offices, banks, restaurants, hairdressers, exhibition halls, ateliers - the only thing that does not have its own doors.

According to the original design of Alexander Pomerantsev, the Upper Trading Rows consisted of 16 large separate buildings with glazed streets between them. It was a whole city, an ideal city of Russian commercial capitalism: silk and brocade fabrics of the Sapozhnikov brothers (6 Grand Prix at the World Exhibitions), Mikhail Kalashnikov watches (Leo Tolstoy and Pyotr Tchaikovsky bought Patek Philippe from him), the Abrikosov confectionery (suppliers of the imperial court with the right to print the state coat of arms on their boxes), Brocard perfumes (also a supplier of the imperial court. Also the official supplier of the Spanish royal court), and so on. However, goods were much cheaper on the upper floors of the lines, and a huge two-story basement was used for wholesale trade (it was lit through glass lanterns in the floor).

In 1917, trade was closed, goods were requisitioned, the People's Commissariat of Food of Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa settled here, who carried out the policy of "food dictatorship" from here. In Ryady there was a warehouse requisitioned by food detachments and a canteen for Soviet employees.

In 1922, Vladimir Lenin decided that the policy of "war communism" would not allow the communists to stay in power, and announced the NEP - the "New Economic Policy". But first he decided to try it in the Upper Trading Rows and on December 1, 1921 he signed the "Regulations on the State Department Store (GUM)". We do not feel a special taste in this word, it has become familiar to us, and yet it is one of the few words that survived in the Russian language of the 20s, something like the Red Army, Rabkrin, Consumer Cooperatives. All of them died as useless - except GUM. GUM advertising, posters by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexander Rodchenko, covered all of Moscow - GUM became a symbol of the NEP.

Stalin closed GUM in 1930, ministries and departments moved in here, the first line was completely closed to entry, Beria's office was located here. Some kind of trade continued, Torgsin and a commission shop for the sale of the property of enemies of the people functioned near the fountain, a grocery store opened on Nikolskaya, but in general GUM ceased to exist.

Stalin twice - in 1935 and in 1947 - was going to demolish the GUM, government decrees were issued twice, but his hands did not reach. He died March 5, 1953. Above his coffin, his successor Georgy Malenkov proclaimed that Comrade Stalin bequeathed us to keep peace between peoples, put forward the idea of ​​a long-term coexistence of the two systems and a reduction in international tension. The military budget was halved, and the intensive development of agriculture and light industry began - everything that later became known as Nikita Khrushchev's New Deal. But first they decided to try at GUM - it was reconstructed and opened to the public on December 24, 1953. On December 23, Lavrenty Beria was shot, the newspapers reported this on the same day. GUM has become a symbol of the thaw.

GUM has a unique destiny - it opened when Russia turned towards people, normal city life, even happiness. Fashion in GUM, a showroom, records in GUM, ice cream in GUM - all this has become Moscow's symbols. And it all disappeared when we turned in the other direction.

GUM today

Today, GUM lives as it was once conceived - an ideal trading city of Moscow, as if having lived 120 years of its life without losses and disasters. Since 2007, the fountain in the center of GUM has again delighted visitors - a legendary building, captured both in official chronicles of the 20th century and in millions of private photographs (today the sound of a camera shutter sounds here about once every three seconds).

The legendary cinema hall, which went down in the history of Russian cinema, has been restored. A unique illumination project has been implemented on the outer facade. Since 2006, the GUM Skating Rink has been opened on Red Square, which immediately gained fame as the brightest ice rink in the capital. We revived the traditions of winter festivities on Red Square, which Moscow was famous for in the 19th century, but we also took the bright and happy that was in the 20th.

Gastronome No. 1, which was once created by Anastas Mikoyan as a practical supplement to his "Book of Tasty and Healthy Food", is working again in GUM. The design, the clothes of the sellers, and even the presence in the assortment of some classic goods of the Soviet era (for example, Three Elephants tea) Gastronome No. 1 takes us back to the 1950s and 60s, although this, of course, is a game. In essence, this is a store that can satisfy the gastronomic whims of today's most demanding consumer.

Cafe "Festivalnoe" and Canteen No. 57 are made in the same Soviet style. The cafe is named after the Festival of Youth and Students, which took place in Moscow in 1957 and gathered 34,000 people from 131 countries of the world. This event is reminded by drawings, slogans in several languages, placed on the walls.

Dining room No. 57 is a classic self-service line, the idea of ​​which Mikoyan spied on in America in 1936, and was able to implement only in the thaw era. True, the food is different: now there is good Russian and European cuisine, and not a "hamburger", as Mikoyan called it, that is, not a "Mikoyan cutlet", as the Soviet people called it.

GUM is not just a store where you can buy almost everything. This is a whole shopping district, in which there is a pharmacy, a bank branch, and a flower shop ... This is an architectural monument. This is a comfortable recreation area with restaurants and cafes. It is an art gallery and venue for cultural events. This is an integral part of Russian history. It is a symbol of Moscow and it is the closest place to the Kremlin where you can feel like you are in Europe.

Text: Grigory Revzin

In 2013, GUM is celebrating a double anniversary - 120 years since the opening of the Upper Trading Rows building by architect Alexander Pomerantsev and 60 years since the new opening of the Main Department Store in 1953.

GUM today lives the way it was once conceived - an ideal trading city, as if all 120 years of its life have passed without losses and disasters. GUM took everything bright and happy that was in the 20th century into the future. Every day at 10 o'clock in the morning its doors open, shop windows light up, the fountain turns on. This place has already become so legendary, almost fabulous, that it may seem that GUM lives like magic. In fact, behind all this beauty, warmth and comfort are people whom no one knows by sight. These are engineers, mechanics, repairmen, supply managers, storekeepers, accountants and many, many others who keep the Main Department Store. It was they who became the heroes of the photo project “City. GUM.

"... Contemporaries do not get tired of admiring them. For a long time they remain an attraction for visitors. (Walter Benjamin; Paris, the capital of the 19th century)

What Walter Benyamin said about the Parisian passages can be fully attributed to the most famous Russian passage - the State Department Store. I did not accidentally use capital letters in his name. It is in this capacity that he has existed in the minds of the Russian population for more than 120 years. The name of the project was born by itself. Indeed, the "City of GUM" was and is a territory whose social attractiveness borders on faith in fabulous, reserved lands.

The core of the portrait concept of the project was the employees who worked in GUM for more than a quarter of a century of their lives, became the "citizens" of this City. Communication with the heroes of the project and walks in places hidden from the eyes of an ordinary visitor, for a moment allowed me to get into their territory.

This is how GUM is seen only by people working here - without visitors, in the early morning and late evening. The passages freeze, closing in on themselves, and only the initiates become silent witnesses of this image, remain alone with it. The features of the architectural appearance - shopping arcades, passages, dead ends, corridors, basements, are similar to the structure of a big city and the interweaving of arteries and veins of a powerful organism, a legendary social and architectural space.

O. L. Sviblova - Director of the Multimedia Art Museum, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts

One hundred and twenty years ago, the Upper Trading Rows opened on Red Square. The magnificent glass "dome", which at the end of the 19th century was a miracle of technology and architecture and which still amazes the imagination of Muscovites and guests of the capital, was made by the great engineer Vladimir Shukhov. "Noblesse oblige" is what the French say. Probably, the beautiful Shukhov floors, photographs of which begin and permeate Anastasia Khoroshilova's book "The City of GUM", in some special way affect people who have been working in these grandiose spaces for many years.

The architecture and structure of the Upper Trading Rows at the end of the 19th century became a symbol of the changes that took place in Russia during the period of rapid Europeanization, cultural and economic prosperity.

Today's GUM is a symbol of the new Russia, the flagship of a new economic, social and cultural strategy that has been emerging in the last decade. A beautifully and scientifically restored architectural monument, in which entrepreneurial and cultural energy seethes, demonstrates that a new reality can be built not only through revolution, but by establishing the connection of times and evolutionary processes.

It works well when the focus is on the person.

In most of the surviving photographs, engineer Shukhov is surrounded by his associates - engineers and builders. The book by Anastasia Khoroshilova is about the people thanks to whom the "GUM city" lives and works. People who have worked in this "city" for many decades. The heroes of this book are representatives of various professions: storekeepers, repairmen, cashiers, accountants, shoemakers and doctors, dispatchers and security guards, merchandisers and salesmen... Sometimes they are working dynasties. They, regardless of age and gender, are united by an amazing sense of dignity, which is read in the expression of their faces and postures. This sense of dignity comes to a person as pride in his profession and common cause. Anastasia Khoroshilova managed to create a solid, restrained and very worthy project. This book is a wonderful gift not only for those who live and work in the city of GUM, but also for each of us who wants to live in a worthy country and believe in its future well-being.

Anastasia Khoroshilova is an artist and photographer. Born in 1978 in Moscow. Studied photography at the Folkwang University of the Arts (Essen, Germany). Her works have been shown at numerous solo and group exhibitions, in the programs of the Moscow International Biennale of Contemporary Art (2013) and Biennale di Venezia (2011), the 1st Beijing Photo Biennale (2013). He teaches at the A. Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia.

Photo GUM (Moscow). GUM address: Russia, Moscow, Red Square

GUM or as it stands for - The main department store in Moscow, its name until 1921 was the Upper Trading Rows. It is a large shopping center in the very center of the city of Moscow, by the way, it stands in the Kitai-Gorod quarter and faces directly onto the main square of the capital. It is also considered a pseudo-Russian monument of architecture and has federal significance. GUM is owned by a Russian company called Bosco di Ciliegi, which specializes in selling luxury goods and high-end clothing. In addition to GUM, it has more than a hundred stores in the capital.

Bosco di Ciliegi is the general partner of the Russian Olympic team, as well as the official supplier of equipment for the Olympic Games.

History of GUM

In the place of dilapidated shops in the seventeenth century, in the reign of Empress Catherine II, the design of a great shopping center at that time, made in the classical style, as planned by the queen, began. The project of the center was developed by the architect Giacomo Quarenghi, but the city architects were entrusted with the construction of the GUM, although they did their work too hastily and, unfortunately, did not finish it. After a fire that happened in Moscow in 1812, another master of classicism restored the trading rows, his name was Osip Bove. The current building of the Upper Trading Rows runs parallel to the Kremlin wall, it was made in the period from 1890 to 1893. according to the project developed by the architect Alexander Nikanorovich Pomerantsev, the engineers Shukhov and A.F. Loleita also took part in the development. The building is designed in a pseudo-Russian style, decorative elements borrowed from the Russian ornamental monuments and twin towers above the main entrance to the building are in harmony with the completion of the building of the Historical Museum next door.

Location of GUM attraction on Yandex map

Created using the Yandex People's Map service. Looking at the map, you can easily determine where GUM is located in the city of Moscow, as well as how to get to it, since all routes, streets and house numbers are indicated on the map.

GUM, or the state department store, is a large shopping complex in the center of Moscow, which occupies an entire block of Kitai-Gorod and faces Red Square with its main facade.

The GUM Fountain is one of the special and popular sights of the capital. Over the long history of the store, its fountain has become a meeting place for guests of the city, including numerous tourists visiting Red Square.

The fountain in GUM is open all year round. Its technical component is unique, it was developed specifically for the location of the source under the dome of the Upper Trading Rows. Thanks to this, the fountain in GUM is unique.

Since 2006, the GUM Skating Rink has been opened on Red Square, which immediately gained fame as the brightest ice rink in the capital. Also, every New Year's holidays, a Christmas GUM Fair takes place on Red Square.

Gastronome No. 1, which was once created by Anastas Mikoyan as a practical supplement to his "Book of Tasty and Healthy Food", is working again in GUM. The design, the clothes of the sellers, and even the presence in the assortment of some classic goods of the Soviet era (for example, Three Elephants tea) Gastronome No. 1 brings guests back to the 1950s and 60s.

Cafe "Festivalnoe" and Canteen No. 57 are made in the same Soviet style. The cafe is named after the Festival of Youth and Students, which took place in Moscow in 1957 and gathered 34,000 people from 131 countries of the world. This event is reminded by drawings, slogans in several languages, placed on the walls.

Dining room No. 57 is a classic self-service line, the idea of ​​which Mikoyan spied on in America in 1936, and was able to implement only in the thaw era. True, the food is different: now there is good Russian and European cuisine, and not a "hamburger", as Mikoyan called it, that is, not a "Mikoyan cutlet", as the Soviet people called it.

GUM is not just a store where you can buy almost everything. This is a whole shopping district, which has a pharmacy, a bank branch, and a flower shop. This is an architectural monument. This is a comfortable recreation area with restaurants and cafes. It is an art gallery and venue for cultural events. This is an integral part of Russian history. It is a symbol of Moscow and it is the closest place to the Kremlin where you can feel like you are in Europe.

In the center of Moscow, directly on Red Square, one of the oldest buildings of the Upper Trading Rows, GUM (the Main Department Store of the capital), was lucky enough to be located. For all the time of its existence, it bears the proud title of the largest department store of the Russian Federation (USSR and the Russian Empire).

History of occurrence

In fact, a relatively small number of stores can "boast" of their rich and interesting history. The former name of GUM is the Building of the Upper Trading Rows, which was built in 1893. The project was developed with the assistance of engineer V. Shukhov and architect A. Pomerantsev. The length of the entire structure along one of the Kremlin walls is approximately 250 m. And its shape was created in the form of 3 longitudinal galleries of 3 floors. It is worth noting that the engineer V. Shukhov proposed to create a unique openwork roof made of glass, who actually realized it with the help of 50,000 pounds of metal. As a result, its diameter was 14 meters. The entire area of ​​the then GUM was divided into 322 stores, where you could find various goods, both industrial and food types. There was also a post office, a bank branch, a hairdresser's and a jewelry workshop. For the first time in this department store, price tags began to be used, books of complaints and suggestions appeared on store shelves. And the famous expression "The customer is always right" has become a real symbol of trade in GUM. A little later, a restaurant was opened. Organized art exhibitions and musical evenings. Thus, people began to come to the Upper Trading Rows not only to purchase goods, but also just to relax. The wardrobe and storage room made the stay very comfortable.

After the revolution swept across the country, GUM, like all other similar outlets, was nationalized. As expected, this led to a decline in trade. In 1935, a project was announced that could forever put an end to this structure. In particular, the project talked about increasing the square of Red Square and demolishing the building, but fortunately, the project was never implemented. On Victory Day in 1945, near this building, Yuri Levitan announced to everyone about the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. But the threat of being demolished remained in front of the department store in the post-war years. This time it was planned to make room for a monument in honor of the Victory, but fortunately this project was never implemented.

1953 can be marked by a real rebirth of the building. It was decided to completely clear the building of all institutions located in it and leave only salons and shops. After the reconstruction, 11 large departments provided an assortment of more than thirty thousand items of goods.

Under Brezhnev, GUM could be closed again, but it was lucky that his wife liked to order clothes in the local atelier, and at her request the department store was preserved.

Joint-Stock Company "Trading House GUM" - this is how it began to be called after December 1990. In other words, his form of activity has returned to what it was a century ago. The centenary of the department store was marked by the opening of the entrance from Red Square in 1993.

GUM - modernity

Modern GUM is constantly evolving and has modern features. It is worth noting that the Demonstration Hall has been restored and is an ideal venue for cultural events. Illumination was installed on the outer facade. Since 2006, a skating rink has been opened on Red Square, where a unique match was held between the stars of the whole world and the USSR. At the moment, in the winter season, the skating rink is a meeting place and leisure. Guests of the skating rink are always happy with the unique festive atmosphere and the performances of celebrities who are here every now and then. In 2007, the opening of the fountain was presented, right in the middle of the department store. Moreover, it is worth noting that the fountain is almost the same age as the Upper Trading Rows.

There are also familiar objects of the capital, which were able to retain their appearance from the 50-60s. Of these objects, Gastronome No. 1 can be noted, where you can buy the same tea “with elephants”. The famous dining room No. 57, which traditionally has a self-service line, where there are alcoholic and soft drinks, as well as dishes of European and Russian cuisine. It is also worth paying attention to the "Festival" cafe, which got its name thanks to the Youth Festival, which was held in Moscow in 1956.

GUM is not only a unique cultural monument, it is a place where you can relax in a cafe or restaurant and spend time at a cultural event. It is an integral part of history, however, like the entire Red Square as a whole.