Moscow department store is a shopping center and department store in the Gagarinsky district of Moscow , located at 54 Leninsky Prospekt . Moscow opened in 1963 as an experimental department store where Western retail technologies were introduced and adapted to the Soviet consumer. In the early 1990s, the department store was privatized, and in the 2000s it became the subject of a dispute between business entities, which led to bankruptcy. In 2014-2015, a new owner appeared at the building, who was considering the possibility of demolition of Moscow for the construction of a modern shopping center.
| Department store "Moscow" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location |  Russia Moscow |
| Address | 54 Leninsky Prospekt |
| opening date | 1963 |
| Developer | Praktika development |
| Owner | Optima development |
| Architect | Yu. Peresvetov, L. Lyakhov, O. Sergeeva, B. Sobolevsky |
| Number of floors | 7 |
| Web site | |
History
USSR
The concept of a new type of department store developed in the 1950s, when the Soviet leadership was seized by the idea of overtaking and surpassing the United States . For the first time, the new principles of Soviet retail were presented to the public in the 1955 film " Behind a Storefront ". The film was shot in the Mosfilm pavilions, because at that time there were no such stores in the USSR . Construction began in 1958 according to the project of architects Yu. Peresvetov, L. Lyakhov, O. Sergeyeva and B. Sobolevsky and engineers A. Rytov and I. Tretyakov. The team of authors turned to the constructivist ideas of the 1920s, laid down by the Vesnin brothers-architects in the project of Krasnopresnensky Mostorg , and supplemented them with the developments of the late 1950s - early 1960s. The completion of the construction was planned for 1959, but was completed much later - in April 1963 [1] [2]
Moscow has become an experimental department store, where Western retail technology has adapted to the Soviet consumer. In Moscow, modern imported cash registers, lightweight mobile counters were used, a service and home goods order bureau, a clothes repair and remodeling workshop, a left-luggage office, a cafeteria and a hairdresser worked. In contrast to the usual service model, when a customer stood in line for a sales receipt, payment and goods, in Moscow the grocery store and non-food departments worked on a self-service basis. Notifications of new products via internal radio and a television information system became innovations: special televisions were installed on the floors, by clicking on the buttons of which the buyer could receive information about the corresponding goods, services and location of departments. “Moscow” also became the first department store with its own showroom for 160 people with a podium for fashion shows. Many of the developments tested in "Moscow" were subsequently implemented in GUM , TsUM and Detsky Mir [3] [2] [4] [1] .
The Moscow department store was supposed to embody the new principles of Soviet retail: respect for the buyer, courtesy without obsequiousness, attention to individual requests, and the struggle for the quality of goods. Special attention was paid to the training and provision of department store employees. On the basis of “Moscow”, an information and training center for advanced training worked, where they taught service theory, etiquette , commodity science and other disciplines. In the neighborhood in the back of the department store there were evening courses at prestigious trade universities - the G.V. Plekhanov Institute of National Economy and the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Soviet Trade , whose students also had internship at the department store. For the staff of "Moscow" were provided canteen, library, first-aid post and own studio [1] [3] .
Russia
In 1992, the Moscow department store was privatized and transformed into a closed joint-stock company , then in 1996 into an open joint-stock company . In 2003, the building underwent reconstruction with the replacement of commercial and lighting equipment, air conditioning systems and fire safety [3] . In the same year, “Moscow” fell into the sphere of interests of raiders Vladimir Palikhata and Grigory Rabinovich, who bought up a controlling stake in the department store. Palihata sold the shares to Rabinovich, who unleashed a long-standing stock conflict that resulted in an 80-volume criminal case involving episodes of an illegal additional issue of shares, fraudulent transactions, the murder of a head of the legal service and an attempt to kill another lawyer. The dispute between business entities led to the bankruptcy of Moscow in 2010. Soon Palihata bought it along with debts, and in 2014-2015 he sold it to the construction company Optima Development [2] [5] .
In the spring of 2015, the developer Praktika Development, associated with the new owner, announced plans to build a modern shopping center, for which it was planned to demolish the historical department store as unsuitable for reconstruction [2] [6] . The company's statements raised concerns among local residents who began collecting signatures against demolition [7] . In December 2015, the president of Optima Development disavowed the developer’s statements and stated that media reports about the possible demolition were not true [8] .
Architecture
The architectural design of the Moscow department store refers to the design of the Vesnin brothers of the 1920s, but the initial versions of the department store building included a classic developed cornice with an attic (subsequently excluded from the project) and a stylized handwritten sign on the facade (transferred to the roof). The display window, taken from the Krasnopresnensky Mostorg project, was divided by an external frame and lost its lightness and grace. The building turned out to be more like a factory building than a traditional department store, but harmoniously fit into the ensemble of the Gagarinsky district . The floors of the department store were solved by single spaces without partitions and connected by stairs, escalators and elevators. Lighting was built into the suspended ceiling, and the color scheme of the interiors was emphasized neutral in order to focus on the products [1] [2] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 Anna Bronovitskaya, Nikolai Malinin, Olga Kazakova. Moscow. The architecture of Soviet modernism 1955 - 1991 Reference Guide. - M .: Garage, 2016 .-- S. 59–61. - 328 p. - ISBN 978-5-9905612-7-4 .
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Alexey Baykov. Department store "Moscow": how the era of consumption Came to the capital . Moscow 24 (May 27, 2015). Date of treatment November 2, 2017.
- ↑ 1 2 3 Open Joint-Stock Company Moscow Department Store . The best people of Russia. Date of treatment November 2, 2017.
- ↑ Polina Potapova. First line: Who runs the historical stores of Moscow . The Village (April 15, 2014). Date of treatment November 2, 2017.
- ↑ Maria Liberman. Virtuoso capture "Moscow" . Kommersant (July 4, 2016). Date of treatment November 2, 2017.
- ↑ Sergey Velesevich. A shopping and entertainment center built on the site of the Moscow department store . RBC (April 22, 2015). Date of treatment November 2, 2017.
- ↑ "Evening": Muscovites were concerned about the fate of the Moscow department store . Moscow 24 (April 28, 2015). Date of treatment November 2, 2017.
- ↑ Optima Development is reconstructing the Moscow department store Moscow for $ 5 million . Rambler News Service (December 16, 2015). Date of treatment November 2, 2017.