The new store of the trading house I.Ya. Churin and Co.

In 1857, the foundation of a trading house in Irkutsk marked the beginning of the merchant activity of Churin. He was one of those who responded to the call of Count N. N. Muravyov-Amursky to participate in supplying the Amur Region with goods necessary for the expedition. Ivan Yakovlevich Churin was in charge of the delivery of military goods from Chita to Sofiysk . The partnership “Churin and Co.” was founded in 1867 in Nikolaevsk together with the brothers Nikolai and Vasily Babintsev. In 1882, the Full Trading House “ I. Ya. Churin and Co. ” was established ^[1] . Ivan Yakovlevich never lived in Vladivostok, but his company successfully developed in the regional capital. In Vladivostok, shops and enterprises of the company have been operating since 1880. At the end of the 80s of the 19th century, Churin and his companions bought a plot of land in the city center, and in August 1889 the first private two-story store of I.Ya. Churin and Co. ". The store was located closer to the postal and telegraph office and was a solid stone building. The company had been trading in this building for 25 years, and in 1914 newspapers informed the Vladivostok residents that a new building of the I.Ya. Churin and Co. ". The author of the store’s project was the architect V. Nikolaev, who was sent to the United States to study the experience of designing buildings of this orientation and build the store in the latest fashion of the time ^{[2] [3]} .

In 1916, the store opened its doors to customers. On its ground floor there was a huge gastronomic department, on the other three, a variety of goods were offered. At the same time, according to the new fashion of that time, many goods were in a free layout, like modern supermarkets: in the children's department, children could freely ride a toy horse, touch a doll, and so on. In the architecture of the new store, a strong influence of Art Nouveau, stylistically associated with the appearance of the trading buildings of St. Petersburg and Moscow, was traced, the best materials designed for centuries were used for decoration. However, it was possible to build only the right side of the building; the revolution and the civil war prevented the construction of the left. In 1914-1915, a four-storey “New Store” was added to the main building, and in the Soviet period another extension was made. In 1973, the building housed the department store "Products for Women and Children", popularly nicknamed Small GUM or Female GUM. It was considered the second most important trading center of the region. Over time, the department store lost popularity, fell into decay and for a long time was in a mothballed state ^[3] .

In modern times, the building of the Small GUM has been empty for a long time, but in 2010 the reconstruction of the store began. The facade of the historical part of the building was restored. At the same time, an additional sixth floor, panoramic elevators appeared. On the territory of more than 8.5 thousand square meters there are youth clothing stores, an entertainment center, a children's area and a food court. Great controversy arose as to how owners and shareholders retained the historic appearance of the building ^[3] .

The building is brick, L-shaped in plan. The trading floors on all floors have the same form. Plastic development of the facades was performed using composite techniques of strict modern style. The front plane is saturated with glass, almost merging into a single stained-glass window of wide windows, and is divided vertically by narrow cannulated pilasters with thin intermediate rods. In the upper part of the pilasters and thrusts, they are united by the uncovered frieze and parapets of a curved shape, decorated with a relief with a floral ornament ^[4] .

• Monuments of history and culture of the Primorsky Territory. Materials for the arch. - Vladivostok: Dalnevost. books. ed., 1991 .-- 268 p.