GUM - Moscow Department Store

Now that is a shopping heaven! It is the biggest and most beautiful mall I have ever seen! GUM stands for Glavnji Universlanji Magazin, or main universal store. The building is bordering the Red Square and the engineering work was done by Vladimir Grigorievich Shukov back in late 1800's. The building went through many changes and at one point it did burn down, but today it is an incredible sight. There are three or four of these arcades all connected.

The roof is one of the most interesting parts of the mall. It is supported by about 50,000 metal pods that are strong enough to hold the tons of snow covering Moscow during the long winters. The mall is very light and airy the result of the 20,000 panes of glass. The building 794 ft long and has over 200 shops. The other interesting part is that it has no play areas for kids, the escalators go only up - you have to take the stairs or elevator to go down,  nor has a "food court", but it has many nice, small restaurants to eat in.
Anyway, GUM is definitely a place to see and stroll around when visiting Moscow.

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