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GUM STATE DEPARTMENT STORE
The end of the last century in a certain sense completed the architectural ensemble of Red Square. In 1890-3 the Upper Trading Rows (now GUM) were erected in the so-called "Russian style" on the east side of the square from a design by Alexander Pomeran-tsev. The talented architect managed to blend this large new building well with the old Kremlin wall opposite and establish new links in the famous ensemble: the paired towers in the central section of the Upper Trading Rows echo the vertical lines of the History Museum and the Kremlin towers.
GUM State Department Store
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The building of the Upper Rows was erected on a spot with a long tradition of trading. The very word "rows" goes back into the distant past. It had long been the custom in Russia to have a special row for trading in a certain article.
Consequently there were many rows in Kitai Gorod each for trading in one of the following: icons, herrings, cauldrons, iron, pedlar's goods, paper, oil, spades, vegetables, greens, canvas, lace, gold, dyes, male and female head-wear, silver, old clothes, honey, lanterns, mittens, furs, soles, laces, needles and so on.
The facades of the long buildings of the Upper Rows are a decorative display of rhythmically alternating elements of Russian ornament transferred to the architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The large glass roofs were installed over the trading lines with the help of metal constructions designed by the distinguished scientist and engineer Vladimir Shukhov. In 1921 on the initiative of Lenin the country's largest department store was opened in the building of the Upper Trading Rows. In the 1930s a number of governmental institutions worked here, and in 1953 after major repairs the State Department Store, or GUM as it is called for short, was reopened. The trading sections are arranged in three long lines. Here, too, is a dressmaking salon and a hall for fashion displays. A staff of about 8,000 serves the more than 300,000 customers who visit the store daily.
It is planned to set up a memorial sign-post outside the central archway of GUM facing Red Square. The distance from Moscow to any geographical point will be calculated from this sign-post on the city's main square.
For many centuries the roads from all over the country converged first on the Kremlin, then on Red Square. As Moscow became more built-up they turned into radial city streets. Thus, from the very outset Red Square was Moscow's main transport junction.
With the founding of the Moscow Post Office in 1700, and later of stations for coaches and other forms of transport in Myasnitskaya Street, distances from Moscow began to be measured from the departure point of the coaches. Today the speedometers of intercity coaches record the number of kilometres from the coach stations and city bus terminus situated near the Automobile Ring which serves, for the most part, as the city's official boundary. Time has put paid to many an old tradition. And although Red Square is now closed to traffic, the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Soviet decided that the sign-post which is to become the official point for measuring distances from Moscow along the main country's highways should be erected here on Red Square.
The sign-post is in the form of a bronze circle six metres in diameter. Inside is a square facing the four points of the compass, each side of which is three metres long. The flora and fauna of the different regions of the Soviet Union are represented on it. Above the side of the square pointing north are reliefs of a Polar owl, a reindeer, a seal and a cloudberry. A mountain goat, a vulture, a dolphin and a mandarine point to the south. The west is symbolized by black grouses, bisons, an eel and an oak tree, and the east by an Ussuri tiger, a Central Asian cobra, a Siberian cedar and a bird.
In the middle of the square is a polished disc from which arrows radiate to the reliefs. In the very centre of the disc is the mark from which the distances are to be measured. The sign-post was designed by the architect Igor Voskresensky and the sculptor Alexander Rukav-ishnikov.
This new attraction will emphasize the fact that all the country's major highways lead to Moscow and its main square.
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