Comments on: GUM Stuck on Nashi

By: Owen

Owen — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:00:40 +0000

Yeah, I did most of my shopping at outdoor markets run by people with worse russian accents than me.

GUM frightens me, but so do similar stores in LA. I much prefer TsUM, it’s in a nicer location, it’s kind of pretty to walk around, and it’s open and spacious.

By: Candide

Candide — Thu, 08 May 2008 19:52:51 +0000

I confess, when it comes to getting “the latest designer gear” from places of “high class retail therapy”, I’m totally with the plebs.

By: tommo

tommo — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:23:23 +0000

Are you kidding? Not being like an American mall is one the things that makes GUM great. “no discount stores, no packed places for kids, no teeming and smelly food courts, no hordes of stupid teenagers” – yup, from that description it is exactly the place in which I’d like to shop.

Joking aside, in truth it is not a mall anyway, but since its revamp a few years ago more in line with Selfridges or Harvey Nicks in London. You wouldn’t go there to save money either, but you would go to get the latest designer gear – just like GUM, which has been hugely successful since it reopened, and in my view a good example of Russia doing something well. ie taking a run down old Soviet basket case department store and turning it into a place of high class retail therapy.

By: Candide

Candide — Thu, 08 May 2008 05:47:45 +0000

Nothing looked good in GUM when I visited in December 2006. The place was empty, almost deserted, unwelcome and unpleasant. Quite a contrast to any American mall in December.

There were no sales signs, as nothing was for sale. The general message was, you want to save money you don\’t come in here. There were no discount stores, no packed places for kids, no teeming and smelly food courts, no hordes of stupid teenagers, practically no life at all. Everything was suffy and stock up. There were more mannequins than people. Ugh.

By: Owen

Owen — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:18:23 +0000

Anyone been to GUM and looked around? Are her designs good? That\’s my most important question

By: Candide

Candide — Sun, 04 May 2008 21:02:28 +0000

Of course, Komsomol was born with a radically different vision. First ‘komsomoltsy’ were hounding and ostracizing their own comrades for any hint of accepting bourgeois modes and mores. In those early times, one could be thrown out from the Kollektiv for wearing mascara or stockings, with all the consequences thereof.

Even in the last years of the Soviet regime, the spirit of ‘uravnilovka’ still reigned supreme.