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Opposite the Kremlin, on the northeast side of Red Square, there stands a strange old building, sometimes plastered with the likenesses of Lenin and Stalin. The outside of the building is like a wedding cake, but within, there are so many modern corridors and pillared halls that the casual visitor might wonder whether to say a prayer or catch a train.
On one facade of the building are the bold initials G.U.M.—for Glavny Universalny Magazin (Principal Department Store). G.U.M. is Moscow's answer to Macy's, Gimbels, Sears Roebuck, Woolworth and A. & P., all rolled into one. Scheduled to open next week, but already three weeks behind schedule, it is being hailed in advance by the Soviet press as "the biggest and the best in the U.S.S.R."
Last week in G.U.M.'s polished interiors (which can hold 20,000 people), workmen were putting the finishing touches to nearly two miles of counters, to snack bars, post offices and a special "nursing room." Soon the shabby housewives of Moscow will pour in, carrying the brown shopping nets which are standard through all Russia. They will be attracted by G.U.M.'s huge ads: "Whatever the Stomach, Body, or Mind demand, G.U.M. will supply," by the government's elaborate promises of a new "Abundance," and by an elemental canniness that has taught them to get in early, because there is never enough to go around.
In G.U.M. the women will find no January sale. Prices in the Soviet Union have dipped substantially, but eggs still cost the equivalent of $3 a dozen, a good pair of shoes is $75. a radio $200, oranges 55¢ each. Yet the mere fact that G.U.M. is opening fills many with wary hope. The site that the giant store occupies was once Upper Row, the biggest shopping center in Czarist Moscow. For 25 years it had served as a labyrinthine Soviet government office: now, by restoring it as a people's shopping center, the Kremlin appears to be giving substance to its impressive promises:
¶ "A sharp rise in the production of consumer goods."—Premier Malenkov. ¶ "A widespread development of Soviet trade."—Trade Minister Mikoyan. ¶ "An abundance of popular goods and agricultural produce."— Party Boss Nikita Khrushchev.
All this will be achieved, the Kremlin insists, by 1955 or 1956. By then, if all goes well, the Soviet people will have twice as much clothing (including underwear "trimmed with lace and embroidery"). three times as many shiny new pots and pans to cook twice as much meat and fish, twice as much candy and ice cream. In 1956, clothes will fit, machines will work; there will be lipstick and perfume for Masha, cigars for Ivan.