GUM (Russian:ГУМ)[a] is a shopping center inMoscow, Russia. It was also the maindepartment store in many cities of the formerSoviet Union; similarly named stores operated in someSoviet republics and inpost-Soviet states.
The most famous GUM is the large store facingRed Square in theKitai-gorod area – itself traditionally a mall ofMoscow. Originally, and today again, the building functions as ashopping mall. During most of the Soviet period it was essentially a department store as there was one vendor: the Soviet State. Before the 1920s the location was known as theUpper Trading Rows (Russian:Верхние торговые ряды,romanized: Verhnije torgovyje rjady).
As of 2021, GUM carries over 100 different brands,[1] and has cafes and restaurants[2] inside the mall.
With the façade extending for 242 m (794 ft) along the eastern side of Red Square, the Upper Trading Rows were built between 1890 and 1893 byAlexander Pomerantsev (responsible for architecture) andVladimir Shukhov (responsible for engineering). The trapezoidal building features a combination of elements ofRussian medieval architecture and asteel framework andglass roof, a similar style to the great 19th-centuryrailway stations ofLondon.William Craft Brumfield described the GUM building as "a tribute both to Shukhov's design and to the technical proficiency ofRussian architecture toward the end of the 19th century".[3]
The glass-roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The roof, the diameter of which is 14 m (46 ft), looks light, but it is a firm construction made of more than 50,000 metal pods (about 743 t (819 short tons)), capable of supporting snowfall accumulation. Illumination is provided by huge arched skylights of iron and glass, each weighing some 740 t (820 short tons) and containing in excess of 20,000 panes of glass. The facade is divided into several horizontal tiers, lined with red Finnish granite,Tarusa marble, and limestone. Each arcade is on three levels, linked by walkways of reinforced concrete.
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Catherine II of Russia commissionedGiacomo Quarenghi, a Neoclassical architect from Italy, to design a huge trade area along the east side of Red Square. However, that building was lost to the1812 Fire of Moscow and replaced by trading rows designed byJoseph Bove. In turn, the current structure opened in 1894, replacing Bove's.[4]
By the time of theRussian Revolution of 1917, the building contained some 1,200stores. After the Revolution, GUM wasnationalized. During theNEP period (1921–28), however, GUM as a State Department Store operated as a model retail enterprise for consumers throughout Russia regardless of class, gender, and ethnicity. GUM's stores were used to further Bolshevik goals of rebuilding private enterprise along socialist lines and "democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide". In the end, GUM's efforts to buildcommunism throughconsumerism were unsuccessful and arguably "only succeeded in alienating consumers from state stores and instituting a culture of complaint and entitlement".[5]
GUM continued to be used as a department store untilJoseph Stalin converted it into office space in 1928 for the committee in charge of his firstFive Year Plan.[4] After thesuicide of Stalin's wifeNadezhda in 1932, the GUM was used briefly to display her body.[6]
After reopening as a department store in 1953, GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that did not have shortages ofconsumer goods, and thequeues of shoppers were long, often extending entirely across Red Square.[7]
Several times during the 1960s and 1970s, the Second Secretary of the Communist PartyMikhail Suslov, who hated having a department store facingLenin's Mausoleum, tried to convert GUM into an exhibition hall and museum showcasing the achievements of the Soviet Union and Communism, without the knowledge of General SecretaryLeonid Brezhnev. Each time, however, Brezhnev was tipped off and put a stop to such plans.[8]
At the end of the Soviet era, GUM was partially, then fully, privatized, and it had a number of owners before it ended up being owned by the supermarket companyPerekrestok. In May 2005, a 50.25% interest was sold toBosco di Ciliegi, a Russianluxury goods distributor and boutique operator. As a private shopping mall, it was renamed in such a fashion that it could maintain its old acronym. The first wordgosudarstvennyj ('state') has been replaced withglavnyj ('main'), so that GUM is now an abbreviation for "Main Universal Store".
55°45′17″N37°37′17″E / 55.75472°N 37.62139°E /55.75472; 37.62139
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