GUM

Push through the heavy doors from Red Square, and the noise of the open square drops away. Light comes from high above you. It falls through a long arched roof of glass and iron, down onto three floors of shop windows. Somewhere ahead, water splashes in a fountain. The floor is cool stone underfoot, and the air smells faintly of coffee and vanilla. This is GUM, Moscow's great trading hall. For well over a century, it has stood face to face with the Kremlin.

The name is an abbreviation. In Russian, the letters stand for State Department Store, a title given in the Soviet years. Before that, Muscovites knew this place as the Upper Trading Rows. The word rows matters here. Trade on this edge of Red Square goes back many centuries. Long before this building existed, the ground was covered with wooden stalls and lanes of small merchants. Fabric, furs, spices, icons and pots were all sold here, within sight of the Kremlin walls.

Those early stalls burned again and again. Moscow was a city of timber, and fire was a constant danger. After the great fire of 1812, during Napoleon's occupation of the city, the rows were rebuilt in a calmer, classical style. But by the late nineteenth century, that building was cramped, dark and falling apart. The merchants of Moscow wanted something new. They wanted a single modern arcade that could stand beside the arcades of Paris, London and Milan.

A competition was held, and the winning design came from the architect Alexander Pomerantsev. The building opened in the early 1890s. Step back outside for a moment, and you will see his style clearly. It is called Russian Revival, a nineteenth-century movement that borrowed shapes from old Muscovite churches and palaces. Look for the small towers, the pointed decorative roofs, and the carved stone around the windows. The facade was designed to match the red-brick History Museum and the Kremlin towers nearby.

Now look up again, at the roof. This is the part many visitors miss. The glass vaults were engineered by Vladimir Shukhov, one of the most inventive Russian engineers of his time. Shukhov later became known for his light steel towers and lattice structures. Here, he used thin iron arches and a fine net of supporting rods. The result is a roof that looks almost weightless. It lets daylight reach every floor, so shoppers in the 1890s could see fabric colours without lamps.

The layout is simple once you understand it. Three long passages run parallel through the building, from one side street to the other. Short cross passages connect them. On the upper levels, narrow bridges cross the open space above the main walkways. Stand on one of these bridges and look down the length of a passage. The view repeats in both directions — railings, arches, shop fronts — like a street that has been placed under glass.

At the centre of it all is the fountain. It has become the meeting point of the store. Families arrange to meet here, couples take photographs, and children watch the jets rise and fall. In the warmer months, the area around it is often decorated with flowers. In winter, it can be filled with seasonal displays. The fountain is a good place to orient yourself, because the three main passages all link back to this middle point.

The twentieth century changed this building many times. After the revolution of 1917, private trade was abolished, and the shops closed. In the 1920s, during a short period when some private business was allowed again, the store reopened under its new Soviet name. Then, in the 1930s, it was taken over for offices. For years, government clerks worked where merchants once sold silk. The bright galleries were divided and used for paperwork and planning.

There is a darker moment in this story, too. In 1932, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, the wife of Joseph Stalin, died suddenly. Her body lay in state inside this building, and mourners came here to pay respects. It is a strange thought, standing among the shop windows today. The same glass roof covered a quiet line of people in winter coats, walking past a coffin, in the very heart of Soviet power.

In 1953, the building returned to trade as a state department store. For Soviet shoppers, it was one of the best-supplied stores in the country. People travelled from other cities to buy goods that were hard to find elsewhere. Queues could stretch through the passages. Locals still tell stories of waiting for hours for shoes or a winter coat. After the Soviet Union ended in the 1990s, the store was privatised. Over time, international fashion brands moved into the old merchant spaces.

Not everything here is luxury, though. One tradition has survived every change. GUM is known across Russia for its ice cream, sold in small cups and cones from carts and kiosks in the passages. Many Muscovites eat it here even in deep winter. On the ground floor, look for Gastronom Number One, a food hall designed with a Soviet-era feel. It sells sweets, caviar, sausages and pastries, and it is a pleasant place to look around, even if you buy nothing.

The building also plays a part in the life of Red Square outside. In winter, a large public ice rink is often set up on the square beside the store, with music and lights after dark. From the windows on the upper floors, you can look out across the cobblestones. You will see the Kremlin wall, the Spasskaya Tower with its clock, and the low granite form of Lenin's Mausoleum directly opposite. Few shopping arcades anywhere sit this close to a nation's centre of power.

Before you leave, take a slow walk along one full passage. Notice how the old details still carry the original design — the iron railings, the moulded ceilings, the arched shop fronts on each level. Then step out onto Red Square and turn back to face the building. In the late afternoon, the sun warms the pale stone, and in the evening thousands of small lights trace the outline of every tower and window.

Stand here for a minute and listen. Behind you, the square is full of voices in many languages. In front of you, people come and go through the same doors that merchants used in the 1890s. The goods on sale have changed many times. The flags on the Kremlin towers have changed too. But the glass roof is still there, still letting the daylight in.