This year one of the oldest stores in Moscow turns 110 years old. The building in the neo-Gothic style with Art Nouveau elements, which now houses this store, in its present form was built in 1908 according to the design of the architect Roman Klein for the company Muir and Meriliz.
1. After the revolution, Muir and Meriliz was nationalized, the building on Petrovka was occupied by Mostorg, and in 1922 by the Central Department Store (TSUM).
Muir and Meriliz was founded in 1857. Scots Andrew Muir and Archibald Meriliz were engaged in wholesale trade in English lace, fabrics and other goods coming from the British Empire in St. Petersburg. They settled in Russia in the first half of the 19th century and in the 80s they moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
2. In Moscow, Muir and Merilize opened a wholesale store of ladies' hats and haberdashery on Kuznetsky Most in 1888. It was the first shopping center in Russia for middle-class people, where you could buy almost everything except groceries.
The four-story building on Kuznetsky Most, 19 is known as the apartment building with shops of Prince Andrei Gagarin, built in two stages: according to the design of architects V. A. Kossov and R. I. Klein.
Soon the trading house "Mur and Meriliz" bought a building for a large store on Teatralnaya Square, on the site of today's Central Department Store. The store on this site opened on September 10, 1885 - in a three-story building converted into a store by Roman Klein.
Photo from 1900. To the right of the Bolshoi Theater is the old Muir and Meriliz building.
In the same year, Muir and Meriliz began trading by mail. Four times a year, the store published a product catalog, which, along with fabric samples, was sent out free of charge to everyone. The company covered the costs of delivering the ordered items (within the European part of Russia).
Muir and Meriliz. Catalog "Autumn-Winter 1913/1914"
In November 1900, a fire completely destroyed the store building on Petrovka. And already in December, Muir and Meriliz opened in a new location. For some time, the company had a wholesale store of ladies' hats and haberdashery on the corner of Kuznetsky Most and Petrovka (in Khomyakov's house).
Khomyakov Trading House (Kuznetsky Most, 6/13) Photo: wikimedia.org User:Sigwald
3. In 1906, construction of a new building began. Architect Roman Klein designed a seven-story department store in the neo-Gothic style. This is the first building in Moscow to use reinforced concrete structures, the same ones used in the construction of skyscrapers in New York. The store was innovative in its equipment: an information desk, a waiting room, two elevators and a restaurant were equipped for customers. Widespread use of metal structures and a steel frame of the building, designed by the famous engineer V.G. Shukhov, provided an abundance of light and internal space.
4. The stylistic decision of the building caused controversy among contemporaries - for Moscow at the beginning of the 20th century it was to some extent an anachronism.
10. In August 1908, the General Store of the Muir and Meriliz Trade and Industrial Partnership opened. The building was completely built in two and a half years. 1.5 million rubles were spent on construction - a very large investment for that time.
11. In December 1918, the store was nationalized. Under the name "Store No. 1" he entered the Moskommun. According to contemporaries, the department store was quickly looted and closed.
12. In March 1922, Mostorg opened - the largest department store in the country. The main buyers were workers who purchased goods using limit books issued to them.
13. In 1933, the department store received a new name - TSUM, Central Department Store.
14. At the beginning of the war, barracks were equipped on the upper floors of the Central Department Store, and card trading continued on the lower floors.
15. In 1944, TSUM was the first Moscow store to switch to trading without cards at commercial prices. Factories were assigned to TSUM, which produced goods only upon order from the department store.
16. In 1955, TSUM was the first Soviet store to give customers access to goods. The obstacle of the counter and the seller has disappeared. Buyers selected goods based on the samples provided and paid for them at the checkout.
In 1961, TSUM opened 12 branches. The most famous are Petrovsky Passage and the Svetlana store, which sold exclusively women's clothing. In 1965, TSUM switched to self-financing.
17. In 1976, a new building of the Central Department Store was built, strikingly different from the previous one. Another building was built in 2004-2007.
18. Now TSUM is a huge department store - on an area of 70 thousand square meters there are collections of more than two thousand brands. Among them are Dolce&Gabbana, Valentino, Celine, Ralph Lauren, Alexander McQueen, Brioni, Loro Piana, Chopard, Rolex, Graff, Garrard, Patek Philippe, etc.
19. The department store has transformed from once accessible to everyone into a store of luxury goods - clothing, shoes, accessories and perfumes. The TSUM website even reports that since the beginning of 2016, prices in the department store have been equal to Milan prices.
20. Over the past 110 years, the Central Department Store has changed many times, and, unfortunately, almost nothing remains of the interior.
Several years ago, a large-scale reconstruction of the historical building of the Central Department Store (TSUM) in the center of Moscow was carried out. One of the contractors for the project to build a new phase of the department store was the Belgian company Decomo, which specializes in the production of architectural precast concrete.
The history of the building, which now houses one of the largest European department stores - TSUM, began back in the 1880s, when the Muir and Meriliz trading house, founded by the Scots Archibald Meriliz and Andrew Muir, acquired this building. It was the first shopping center in Russia for middle-class people, where you could buy almost everything except groceries.
The Muir and Meriliz store very quickly became known throughout Russia, since 4 times a year a product catalog was published, which was sent out free of charge to everyone in the same way as fabric samples - any resident of the country could order goods by mail. In letters to A.P. Chekhov from Yalta, you can find the following lines: “...Dear Masha, quickly tell Meriliz to send me cash on delivery a lambskin hat, which in his autumn catalog is called a badeyka (N 216), astrakhan black; choose a soft one, size 59 centimeters... If the American caps (N 213) are warm, then let Merilize also send a cap...”
The modern TSUM building, built back in 1908, is an example of European Gothic with Art Nouveau elements. The famous architect R.I. worked on the project of the seven-story building. Klein, author of the project “Museum of Fine Arts. A.S. Pushkin." For the first time in Russia, reinforced concrete was used during construction. The new method made it possible to significantly increase retail space due to thinner walls, dispense with traditional wide columns and use iron and steel structures to significantly increase window space.
The TSUM building was repeatedly reconstructed and expanded, but in the style of architecture typical of those times and without much splendor. And the last reconstruction and next expansion of the department store was carried out from 2004 to 2007. Today we will tell you about this period in the life of the famous building.
The owner of the development wanted to see a facade that could both compete and harmonize with the original one. The Moscow architectural bureau “Andrey Meyerson and Partners” designed for this a classic facade with a very pronounced relief, columns with large plinths and Ionian capitals, strongly protruding cornices, as well as prominent joints.
At first, they were going to use natural stone from the Urals for cladding the facades, but then the choice fell on architectural precast concrete - a durable and ultra-modern product that provides more opportunities for translating architectural ideas into reality. At the same time, the plastic capabilities of concrete remain unrivaled.
Since architectural concrete is practically not produced in Russia, the Belgian company Decomo, which has extensive experience in using precast and polished concrete in architecture, was chosen as a contractor for the production of facades. We have already talked about one of the projects implemented by Decomo on the pages of our online magazine.
All elements of the facades were produced in Mukron in Belgium - the total area of the concrete surface was approximately 6300 square meters with a volume of about 860 cubic meters, and the number of finished parts was produced no less - 1100 pieces.
Facade elements were of 2 types. The first type, "TSUM I", up to the large cornice at a height of 13.40 m, was defined by a composite self-supporting façade. Parts up to 15 cm thick were installed on a prepared foundation and connected to each other with pins, and on the reverse side they were attached to the main wall with high-quality steel anchors.
The second part of the facade, “TSUM II”, was mounted above the large cornice and consists of hanging elements. The 12 cm thick parts were fastened using special façade anchors in drilled holes in the unfinished building.
To make molds, Decomo specialists use various materials - mainly wood, but also metal and hard plastic.
The Decomo company is famous for its quality, so a 1:1 facade sample with a height of 13 m was created at the factory in Mukron. First, all parts of the facade were accurately assembled, the quality standard and the program for supplying elements to Russia were approved.
Only after this did production begin. All 1,100 finished parts for the construction site were produced in a specific sequence. Transportation of finished parts to Moscow took 8-10 days.
A gray-greenish color was chosen for painting the architectural concrete facades. After installing the facades, a team of concrete cosmetics specialists began work. Then the facades were treated with acid and protected against graffiti and hydrophobirung.
As a result, a new building for the legendary department store appeared in the center of Moscow, which, on the one hand, is absolutely in harmony with the historical building of the Central Department Store, and on the other hand, is ultra-modern in terms of the materials used and construction technologies.
A well-known distributor of luxury clothing and jewelry became the owner of the company, which last year bought a third of the department store’s space from the Moscow government
TSUM shopping center (Photo: ITAR-TASS/Alexandra Krasnova)
The Mercury company has become the sole owner of the Central Department Store (TSUM): the company Parnas, which belongs to it, acquired the Arkada Holding company, which owns a third of the department store’s space on Petrovka, 2. Vedomosti reported this, citing a source familiar with the details of the transaction .
In November last year, the Arkada Holding company bought 19.2 thousand square meters from the Moscow government at an auction. m on the fifth - seventh floors of the Central Department Store for 4.3 billion rubles, formerly RBC Real Estate. The deal was necessary for their subsequent resale to Mercury, experts interviewed by Vedomosti are sure. And a month later, in December 2015, Arkada Holding became the property of the Parnas company, the publication says. General Director of Parnas Oleg Trukhachev, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities (USRLE), manages the companies Mercury LLC and Nevsky Plaza LLC, which belong to Mercury founders Leonid Fridland and Leonid Strunin, the publication writes.
It is unknown how much Mercury Arcade Holding cost. Vacant space in such a facility can cost from 300 thousand rubles. for 1 sq. m depending on the floor, Colliers International partner Stanislav Bibik calculated at the request of Vedomosti. At the same time, most of the space sold by the city is leased to OJSC TD TSUM (owned by Mercury) at a rate of only 3.5 thousand rubles. for 1 sq. m per year, as follows from the lot documentation for the auction. At such a rate, investments in the TSUM space would pay off only after 63 years, the managing partner of S.A. told the newspaper. Ricci Alexey Bogdanov. The normal return on investment period for such projects is 10-11 years, the expert adds.
TSUM is one of the oldest stores in Moscow. The seven-story department store building was built in 1906 according to the design of the architect Roman Klein and is a regional cultural heritage site “Department Store “Mur and Meriliz” (architects R. I. Klein, architectural technician G. A. Shuvalov, architects S. I. Nikulin, A. A. Kazakov, Yu. V. Omelchenko”). In 1974, the building was reconstructed and a new building with four underground garages was built.
The main owner of TSUM is the Mercury group, the official distributor of luxury brands of clothing, shoes and jewelry (Armani, Balenciaga, Rolex, Dolce & Gabbana, etc.) in Russia. In addition to TSUM, it owns the department store House of Leningrad Trade (DLT) in St. Petersburg, the Barvikha Luxury Village, the Barvikha Hotel & Spa, as well as several boutiques in Tretyakovsky Proezd and on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, Vedomosti recalls.
TSUM, located in the very center of Moscow, in close proximity to historical monuments of cultural and architectural significance (Bolshoi and Maly Theaters, Moscow Operetta, Historical Museum, Red Square, Moscow Art Theater named after A.P. Chekhov, Youth Russian State Academic Theater RAMT ), as well as exhibition halls (New Manege, Ekaterina Cultural Foundation) and world-famous hotel complexes (Metropol, Ararat Park Hyatt, The Ritz Carlton).
The history of TSUM began in 1857, when two Scottish merchants Andrew Muir and Archibald Meriliz founded the trading company Muir and Meriliz in a building on Theater Square. Here, on the site of today's Central Department Store, a very large department store was created, similar to the Whiteley's in London and the Bon Marché in Paris. This was an excellent option for building such a store: near Red Square, the Bolshoi and Maly theaters. Nearby was the chic Passage and Kuznetsky Most - a street of expensive, prestigious shops.
Muir and Meriliz became the first department store in Russia - a store for the middle class. Here you could buy almost everything: shoes, clothes, perfumes, jewelry, furniture, household items, children's toys. All the goods of the Moscow department store were of excellent quality, the sellers were impeccably polite and tidy. The managers of the new department store are among the first in Russia to introduce European trading standards: fixed prices, the possibility of exchanging goods, periodic sales, daily delivery of goods to all parts of the city. Also, four times a year, Muir and Meriliz published a product catalog, which was sent free to everyone, as well as fabric samples. Any resident of the country from Warsaw to Vladivostok could order the goods by mail, despite the fact that the store would bear the delivery costs (within the European part). By the end of the century, the number of departments in the Muir and Merilis store reached 44, and the number of employees approached a thousand.
In February 1892, there was a severe fire in the store, but its consequences were quickly eliminated. “The premises were fully equipped with automatic fire extinguishers,” wrote store owner Andrew Muir, “and the damage to the goods appears to have resulted more from them and from the water supplied by the fire engines than from the fire.” Insurance covered all losses, but two firefighters died in the fire. This misfortune further increased the despondency of the owners caused by the decline of trade.
On the evening of November 24, 1900, a second fire broke out in the store. Moscow was flooded with bright red light for many miles around, and crowds of people gathered near the building to watch such an event.
The store building burned down and it was decided to build a new building on the site of the burnt one. The project of the new seven-story building was developed by the famous architect Roman Ivanovich Klein in the English Gothic style with Art Nouveau elements. For the first time in Russia, reinforced concrete was used during construction. Metal structures and a steel frame of the building, designed by the famous engineer V. G. Shukhov, were also used. Although the store was not a skyscraper, one way or another, a seven-story building was considered tall at that time. The new construction method made it possible to significantly increase retail space due to thinner walls.
With the opening of the new department store, Muir and Meriliz reached the pinnacle of its fame. By 1913, the store had 80 departments. The new store aroused great interest due to the novelty of technical equipment, European comfort and the beauty of the decoration of the halls. The innovations of the Muir and Meriliz department store were a waiting room, a help desk, an information service for Moscow and two high-speed electric elevators for customers, the appearance of which was very surprising and caused a real sensation.
In 1922, with the advent of Soviet power, the store was nationalized, and on March 10 of the same year, the largest department store in the capital, Mostorg, was opened. After some time, the store was renamed TSUM. IN
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During the Great Patriotic War, the Central Department Store provided supplies to workers using a rationing system, and barracks were located in the premises on the upper floors of the department store.
In 1995, it was decided to reconstruct the building in order to expand the retail space through a more rational layout and organization of retail space. In 1996, the German company ReDesign Einrichtung GmbH (Germany), a fairly well-known design and construction organization that participated in the reconstruction of the largest European supermarkets and department stores, won the tender for the creation and implementation of a project to modernize and improve the department store.
In 1997, work on the new, modern look of the central building of the Central Department Store was completed. The modernization made it possible to increase the area of the Central Department Store to 33 thousand square meters and qualitatively improve the store infrastructure. Buy things at Central. Universal. Fashionable” has again become prestigious and convenient.
Continuing centuries-old traditions, TSUM today is the first and main “Department store” of the country, offering products of the highest quality.
Exhibitions and art projects are held under the auspices of the TSUM Art Foundation (the foundation specializes in contemporary art). In 2007, as part of the 2nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, TSUM presented the project “American Video Art”. In 2009, Yoko Ono’s monographic exhibition “The Odyssey of a Cockroach” was also held here, as well as the exhibition of Chinese art “China, Go!” and the installation project by artist Oleg Kulik “Moscow. TSUM".
In September 2009, TSUM organized an event to raise funds to help orphans, and in March 2010, a photo project in support of the fight against cancer was presented to the public.
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Classmates
Putin's friends, bankers and mountain Jews.
The owners of large shopping centers in Moscow are an extremely motley bunch. Among them you can meet Putin's childhood friends, pop star producers, diamond dealers and similar extraordinary personalities. The Afisha magazine tried to create a register of owners of the capital's largest shopping centers.
Crocus City Mall
A former engineer and trade union worker from Baku, Aras Agalarov, realized in the 90s that computers were the future, and organized a large specialized exhibition. On the wave of success, he built the Crocus Expo exhibition complex and the Your House store on the Moscow Ring Road, which sells salted milk mushrooms and wine cabinets. But what really fascinated him was not furniture, but fashion, so in 2001 he started the pompous “Crocus City Mall” in Myakinino - the developers were twirling their fingers at their temples. He became the first private co-investor of the metro and opened the Myakinino station.
Now Crocus City Mall is managed by Agalarov’s son, Emin, who is married to Leyla Aliyeva, the daughter of the President of Azerbaijan. This is one of the emptiest shopping centers in Moscow and the Moscow region.
In addition, Aras opened several restaurants, including Nobu, a giant Vegas shopping center (480,000 m2) on Kashirka, and, commissioned by the state, a university in Vladivostok. Now he is building a satellite city in Myakinino with 14 skyscrapers and an aquarium.
Metropolis
History Until recently, Metropolis belonged to the Kazakh company Capital Partners, whose owners are the Turk Burak Oymen and one of the largest developers of Almaty, Serzhan Zhumashov (he is called a relative of the former prime minister of Kazakhstan). They also owned The Ritz-Carlton hotel on Tverskaya. The company's method is to demolish and rebuild: The Ritz-Carlton was built on the site of the Intourist Hotel, Metropolis grew up on the site of an iron foundry.
Now At the beginning of 2013, the company sold Metropolis to the American investment bank Morgan Stanley. Metropolis ranks fifth in terms of attendance in Moscow - more than 55,000 people come to it every day.
In addition, Capital Partners built a lot in Kazakhstan (including an English school), as well as in Miami. The Ritz-Carlton was sold to another Kazakh company and is going to buy the Bolshevik factory.
European
In the early 2000s, the co-owners of the Cherkizovsky market, Mountain Jews God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliev, realized that the time for bazaars was passing.
They decided to build a Western-level shopping center together with a strong partner - Vladimir Putin’s classmate, Azerbaijani Ilgam Ragimov.
Now "European" looks strange from the outside, but inside - five atriums, parking at the top and illogically located exits - an excellent maze for shoppers. It ranks second in the ranking of the most visited shopping centers in the world (140 thousand people per day), second only to the Dubai Mall in the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, Nisanov and Iliev own the Ukraina and Radisson Slavyanskaya hotels, the Sadovod market and other complexes, they will reconstruct the All-Russian Exhibition Center and build a skyscraper in Moscow City.
Okhotny Ryad
For the 850th anniversary of Moscow, Luzhkov decided to improve Manezhnaya Square and build the city's first underground shopping center. This was done by the former shareholder of Sobinbank, Alexander Zanadvorov./finance/2089/ In 2005, billboards “Zanadvorov, why do you need an island?”, “Zanadvorov, call Mika”, “ZanadVORov works in the Seventh...”, “ZanadVORov works in the Seventh...”. These boards belonged to the company of Umar Dzhabrailov (see also “Roma thinks about the family. The family thinks about Roma”). and were presumably related to Zanadvorov’s plans for Bolotny Island.
Now it was assumed that Okhotny Ryad would house boutiques of great brands. But it turned out that most of the visitors are tourists from the provinces. The owner reduced rates by 15–20%, and the boutiques replaced the more popular Mango, Colin's, Zara and Tvoe.
In addition, Zanadvorov owns the Seventh Continent supermarket chain.
Rio on Dmitrovka
A native of the Armenian city of Tashir, Samvel Karapetyan moved to Kaluga in the early 1990s, where he was engaged in wholesale trade and built department stores. “Rio” made its debut in Moscow at Akademicheskaya, and subsequently at Yerevan Plaza. For “Rio on Dmitrovka” he paved a road bypassing the traffic jam and created the first aquarium in Moscow.
Now Karapetyan solves the problem of Rio's occupancy simply - he rents out the space to himself. The Tashir holding includes the Cinema Star cinema chain, Fashion Alliance, Wild West and others, restaurant chains, cafes and pizzerias.
In addition, Karapetyan created the Tashir Prize for success in Armenian musical culture. The ceremony takes place in the Kremlin, Stas Mikhailov and Enrique Iglesias sing there, and Karapetyan gifts the hosts of the show (say, Ksenia Sobchak) apartments in Yerevan. And in “Rio” a Tajik loader named Jimmy was discovered playing Bollywood pop on a bucket.
TSUM and GUM competed back in Soviet times, now the story continues: GUM is owned by a competing company selling luxury goods - Bosco di Ciliegi. And TSUM was reconstructed by the Mercury company, whose shareholders are Leonid Fridlyand and Leonid Strunin. Mercury is a distributor of Dolce & Gabbana, Rolex, Tiffany & Co., Bentley and other most expensive things in the world.
TSUM has no equal in the country in terms of choice and high cost. Installations by Oleg Kulik and an exhibition by Yoko Ono were shown here. But the provocative advertising campaigns “Who doesn’t wear Prada is a sucker!”, “My light, TSUM, tell me, am I the most fashionable at school?” caused a much greater resonance.
In addition, Mercury owns boutiques in Tretyakovsky Proezd, the Barvikha Luxury Village shopping center on Rublevka and the DLT department store in St. Petersburg.
Golden Babylon
In 2005, the owners of the construction market “Severyanin”, the last name of one of whom was Khikhinashvili, decided to repeat the success of “European”. In 2009, they built the largest shopping center in Europe with an area of 240,000 m2 (however, a year later this status was taken over by the Vegas shopping center). Then they sold Babylon to the Austrian investment company Immofinanz Group.
At the opening of “Babylon” on Mira Avenue, there was a terrible stampede: a video of a crowd of thousands attacking the escalator went viral.
It’s quieter now: due to the strange configuration of the site, the shopping center turned out to be elongated, like a sausage, with a void in the middle. Some of the premises are still empty.
In addition, the Austrians own several “Babylons” and a shopping center in Shchukino, and Khikhinashvili and company own cottages on Rublevka and hotels on Bakhrushina.
Mega Belaya Dacha
Having built IKEA in Khimki and Teply Stan, the Swedes spent a long time looking for a site in the eastern part of the city. In 2003, they even managed to purchase a plot of land near Shchelkovskoye Highway, but it turned out that this land contained nests of rare bird species. Former Minister of Agriculture Viktor Semenov came to the rescue; he suggested that the Swedes build a shopping center on the land of the Belaya Dacha agricultural complex that he owned. IKEA Belaya Dacha became the first store located on one floor. The project turned out to be so successful that it became a standard project for the regional Mega shopping centers in Russia.
The complex's traffic on weekdays is about 40–50 thousand people per day, on weekends – 100–120 thousand people.
Tsvetnoy Central Market
The department store on the site of the Central Market, which had been empty for 20 years, was built - but allegedly wants to be sold - by the development company RGI International (now Rose Group). Kuzinets Founder Boris Kuzinets recently sold his share to Globex Bank structures. In the case of Tsvetnoy, the Moscow authorities showed a rare adherence to principles: the building had to maintain its previous volume and purpose - a collective farm market. This scared many, but Kuzinets came up with an ingenious solution: he built a modern department store, on the top floor of which there was a small farmers’ market.
Now it is the friendliest of Moscow's expensive department stores, which competes with both TsUM and Evropeyskiy.
In addition, Kuzinets is called the father of the “golden mile” - most of the luxury residential buildings on Ostozhenka were built by RGI International.
Afimall City Artists
History AFI Development is owned by the diamond king Lev Leviev - he mines and processes diamonds in Africa, Israel and Russia. Leviev is the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS and the head of the Congress of Bukharan Jews of Israel. Initially it was planned that the central core of Moscow City would be a public space with a concert hall, cinemas, hotels, restaurants and an interchange hub for the metro and trains. But for a long time it was not possible to find an investor to implement this project. In 2005, Lev Leviev got down to business, but only created Afimall - an ordinary shopping center, albeit a beautiful one.
For almost a year since its opening, Afimall City enjoyed the reputation of a department store where there were more sellers than buyers: no more than 20,000 people visited it per day. Now, according to department store management, that figure has risen to 50,000 people a day. Among other well-known projects of AFI Development is the Four Winds business center (at the intersection of 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya and Bolshaya Gruzinskaya), which in 2012 was sold to the structures of Roman Abramovich.
Atrium
The construction company Ingeocom was allowed to build a multi-storey parking lot with retail premises near the Kursky railway station, but in the process the parking area was significantly reduced. The building itself has an irregular geometric shape due to the Botkin estate, which stands to the left of the Atrium. In this house, Botkin died of syphilis, which he inoculated himself during a scientific experiment. Later, the reception house of the owner of the Arbat Prestige chain, Vladimir Nekrasov, was located there. In 2000, the snowmobile on which the founder of Ingeocom, Mikhail Rudyak, and actress Marina Levtova were riding, fell into a ravine - Levtova died. After his death in 2007, Engeocom was inherited by his widow and children.
One of the most expensive and successful shopping centers in Moscow, especially popular among young people. Topshop, H&M, Uniqlo - there is no such combination in the center anywhere else. At the beginning, its fame was promoted by the Comedy Club show, which was filmed in the Atrium. Recently, the Atrium has become fashionable - the singer Santigold performs there and contemporary art exhibitions are held.
GUM was opened in 1893. More than a thousand shops operated here. After the revolution, traders were driven out onto the streets, and those in need of housing were housed in shops. In the early 1930s, it was planned to build a building for the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR on this site, but the project was not implemented. In 1953, the residents were evicted and GUM was again turned into the country's main department store. In 2004, the founder of Bosco di Ciliegi, Mikhail Kusnirovich, together with his partners, bought the building. Bosco boutiques occupy only a fifth of the department store.
Nowadays, under the roof of GUM, luxury and Soviet style are surprisingly combined: there is “Gastronomy No. 1” and “Dining Room No. 57”. Last year, Kusnirovich restored a historic toilet based on sketches from 120 years ago. Now this is the most expensive toilet in the capital - 85 rubles per visit.
In addition, Kusnirovich is the most media developer in Russia, so the whole country knows about his projects and hobbies - from planting cherry orchards and ice skating to creating clothes for Olympians and music festivals.