Moszkva_2011majus_3170
The GUM department store on Red Square in Moscow. / A GUM áruház a Vörös téren Moszkvában.
Pictures from Moscow, Russia in May 2011. I stopped here for one day before continuing my flights to a conference in StPetersburg. In spite of the rain, I managed to visit the Red Square and most of the Kremlin sites in the morning.
Képek Moszkva belvárosában 2011. májusában. Egy napot töltöttem itt, mielőtt továbbrepültem Szentpétervárra egy konferenciára. Az esős idő ellenére sikerült a Vörös teret és a Kreml jelentős részét megnéznem a délelőtti órákban.
GUM (abbreviation of state universal store in Russian) is the main department store in the Kitai-gorod part of Moscow facing Red Square. Called the 'Upper Trading Rows' originally, it was built between 1890 and 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev (architecture) and Vladimir Shukhov (engineering). By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the building contained some 1,200 stores. After the Revolution, the GUM was nationalised. During the NEP period (1921–28), GUM's stores were used to further Bolshevik goals of rebuilding private enterprise along socialist lines and 'democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide'. GUM continued to be used as a department store until Joseph Stalin converted it into office space in 1928 for the committee in charge of his first Five Year Plan. After reopening as a department store in 1953, the GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that did not have shortages of consumer goods, and the queues of shoppers were long, often extending entirely across Red Square. At the end of the Soviet era, GUM was privatized, currently owned by the supermarket company Perekryostok and Bosco di Ciliegi, a Russian luxury-goods distributor and boutique operator. It was renamed to keep its old abbreviation, the first word Gosudarstvennyi ('state') has been replaced with Glavnyi ('main'), so that GUM is now an abbreviation for "Main Universal Store". It is about the size of a large North American shopping mall.
With the façade extending for 794 ft (242 m) along the eastern side of Red Square, . The trapezoidal building features an interesting combination of elements of Russian medieval architecture and a steel framework and glass roof, a similar style to the great 19th-century railway stations of London. The glass-roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The roof, the diameter of which is 14 meters, looks light, but it was made of more than 50,000 metal pods (weighing about 743 tons, capable of supporting snowfall accumulation), containing over 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.
Moszkva_2011majus_3170
The GUM department store on Red Square in Moscow. / A GUM áruház a Vörös téren Moszkvában.
Pictures from Moscow, Russia in May 2011. I stopped here for one day before continuing my flights to a conference in StPetersburg. In spite of the rain, I managed to visit the Red Square and most of the Kremlin sites in the morning.
Képek Moszkva belvárosában 2011. májusában. Egy napot töltöttem itt, mielőtt továbbrepültem Szentpétervárra egy konferenciára. Az esős idő ellenére sikerült a Vörös teret és a Kreml jelentős részét megnéznem a délelőtti órákban.
GUM (abbreviation of state universal store in Russian) is the main department store in the Kitai-gorod part of Moscow facing Red Square. Called the 'Upper Trading Rows' originally, it was built between 1890 and 1893 by Alexander Pomerantsev (architecture) and Vladimir Shukhov (engineering). By the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the building contained some 1,200 stores. After the Revolution, the GUM was nationalised. During the NEP period (1921–28), GUM's stores were used to further Bolshevik goals of rebuilding private enterprise along socialist lines and 'democratizing consumption for workers and peasants nationwide'. GUM continued to be used as a department store until Joseph Stalin converted it into office space in 1928 for the committee in charge of his first Five Year Plan. After reopening as a department store in 1953, the GUM became one of the few stores in the Soviet Union that did not have shortages of consumer goods, and the queues of shoppers were long, often extending entirely across Red Square. At the end of the Soviet era, GUM was privatized, currently owned by the supermarket company Perekryostok and Bosco di Ciliegi, a Russian luxury-goods distributor and boutique operator. It was renamed to keep its old abbreviation, the first word Gosudarstvennyi ('state') has been replaced with Glavnyi ('main'), so that GUM is now an abbreviation for "Main Universal Store". It is about the size of a large North American shopping mall.
With the façade extending for 794 ft (242 m) along the eastern side of Red Square, . The trapezoidal building features an interesting combination of elements of Russian medieval architecture and a steel framework and glass roof, a similar style to the great 19th-century railway stations of London. The glass-roofed design made the building unique at the time of construction. The roof, the diameter of which is 14 meters, looks light, but it was made of more than 50,000 metal pods (weighing about 743 tons, capable of supporting snowfall accumulation), containing over 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.