My How Things Have Changed

One of the things on my list for this trip was to duplicate a picture Dave and I took forty years ago. 

Think back forty years. The United States  and the Soviet Union were contesting everything. We won some. They won some. The battle was far from over. 

We were part of a German student travel group spending two weeks in Russia. I had heard about GUM Department store. It was right across Red Square from Lenin's tomb. For years the government had trumpeted how the many things on display showed the might of their economic system. 

The not so secret story, though, was that it really was not all that well stocked. The people who did buy there would often snap up whatever was offered, regardless of color or size in clothes, for instance. Things were in such short supply, the folk just bought what was there. 

I wanted to check it out myself. So when the group went, I found out that the stores were stocked. Not nearly what one would find at Sears or JC Penneys, but there was stuff to buy. The presentation was a bit lacking. I remember signs of one or two printed words saying (I was told) "Buy a Necklace," or "Shirts for Sale." The stores  had a mannequin or two. Maybe there was a picture of a severe looking lady with a nice new dress on or something. But not much in decor. It was pretty frumpy. 

There were a few stores featuring luxury foreign items like luggage and perfume I recall. But mostly just a few stalls of pedestrian stuff, and lots of empty stalls. 

The setting itself was worn and dingy. GUM was a series if tall arched hallways holding lots of stalls. There was a glass ceiling that was supposed to let in light, but most of our stay was cloudy on that trip. So, really, it was not too inspiring. Like most things in the system, it was stodgy and  "adequate."

One additional detail, at various times on that trip, locals slithered up to us on the street or metro and asked if we would sell our Levi's to them for forty US dollars or once something like eighty dollars worth of rubles. Apparently a good pair of pants was hard to come by. 

At any rate, we took our picture of GUM (on Ektachrome, with the extra speed of ASA 160) and went home. I think Dave has the picture. 

Today I wanted to retake that picture. So I did. It was bright, active, chic, and as high class busy as you would find in any great first class mall. Name the luxury, name the brand. It was on sale here. Quite a change!!!

 And then a few minutes later, in the next hall over, which looked pretty much like the first hall of GUM, I had to retake the picture. This time you can see, on the left if you look real hard, the Levi's store stretched across fifty meters of mall!!!