Editing Red Square (section)

=== GUM department store ===
{{main|GUM (department store)}}
[[File:0169 - Moskau 2015 - Roter Platz (25795529393).jpg|thumb|GUM]]
The GUM department store, situated at the eastern side of the square, occupies the entire section between Nikolskaya and Ilyinka streets. Due to its location directly on Red Square, and its considerable size, the sales area is around {{convert|35000|m2|sqft}}. Owing to the building's striking architecture, the GUM is the best-known [[shopping center]] in Russia.

Built in 1893, it replaced an [[Empire style]] building that had housed the Upper Trading Ranks since 1815, which united a large part of Kitai-Gorod's trading activities under one roof. After this building began to deteriorate in the middle of the 19th century, there were plans for a building to replace it. However, due to organisational difficulties, these could only be implemented in the 1890s, for which a special company was founded and an ideas competition among architects was advertised. This was won by a project by the architecture professor Alexander Pomeranzewas, as well as the little-known engineer Vladimir Schuchow. The construction of the new trade rows lasted from 1890 to 1893. When they were ceremoniously opened on 2 December 1893, the new structure was able to impress the Russian and foreign public, not only with an unprecedented range of all kinds of consumer goods, but also with a completely new glass roof construction of the three passages, designed by Schuchow and built using around 60,000 panes of glass. The building's architectural style, like the neighbouring Historical Museum a decade earlier, was in the historical "Russian style" with a roof gable based on typical [[boyar]] palaces of the 16th century, two decorative towers based on the Kremlin and a main facade reminiscent of historical Russian buildings.

During the [[History of the Soviet Union|Soviet era]], the new upper trading ranks had an eventful history. In 1921, they were given their current name GUM («ГУМ»), which, at the time, was the abbreviation for «Государственный Универсальный Магазин» ('State Department Store'); today it stands for «Главный Универсальный Магазин» ('Main Universal Store'). In the early 1930s, they were closed for two decades and served as office and residential buildings, and from the end of 1953, until the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], the store was considered a model department store in the middle of the real socialist [[shortage economy]]. In the 1990s, the store was privatised and thoroughly renovated, and today, it presents itself to the locals and tourists as a noble shopping centre characterised by boutiques in the upper price ranges. Since 2013, GUM operates a yearly Christmas fair in front of its department store, the biggest one in all of Russia.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2013-12-02 |title=Новогодняя ГУМ-Ярмарка на Красной площади |url=https://www.buro247.ru/community/party/pervaya-gum-yarmarka-na-krasnoy-ploshcadi.html |access-date=2024-11-26 |website=BURO. |language=ru}}</ref>