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The Soviet opened the largest department store in the country specializing in children's goods, like toys, clothes and so on. The store, Detskiy Mir, meant "Children's world" in Russian. It was opened in Moscow during 1957. It proved extremly popular among Soviet shoppers nd was one of the most modern stores in the country. The Soviet Union was not known as a country cattering to consumes.
The popularity of the store meant that it had a great influence on Soviet children's fashion. The store was built on Lubyanskaya square. This is an address known to all Soviet cuitizens. It was next door to the KGB (former NKVD) building which had a notorious prison. Many caught up in the Great Terror and Gulag were first brought here. A Russian reader tells us that the location of Detskiy Mir there was no accident. Chairman Khruschev and Prime Minister Mikoyan were trying to make a name "Lubyanka" (a short name for Lubyanskaya square) less frightening and horrifying to Modscovites after Stalin's death. People strongly associated that Lubyanskaya square with repressions and the secret police. Thus selectuiong the location for the biggest specialized children's department store in Moscow was a step in softening the image of Lubyanskaya square. Management was Western-style, with commercials, placards, slogans, unique uniform style for managers and sellers, and a bright packs with a logo of the shop. You can see a logo on a top of the building. It was one of the first retail stores of such a kind in USSR. The packages had colorful, cheerful designs.
The Soviet opened the largest department store in the country specializing in children's goods, like toys, clothes and so on. The store, Detskiy Mir, meant "Children's world" in Russian. It was opened in Moscow during 1957. It proved extremly popular among Soviet shoppers nd was one of the most modern stores in the country. The Soviet Union was not known as a country cattering to consumes.
The popularity of the store meant that it had a great influence on Soviet children's fashion.
The store was built on Lubyanskaya square. This is an address known to all Soviet cuitizens. It was next door to the KGB (former NKVD) building which had a notorious prison. Many caught up in the Great Terror and Gulag were first brought here. A Russian reader tells us that the location of Detskiy Mir there was no accident. Chairman Khruschev and Prime Minister Mikoyan were trying to make a name "Lubyanka" (a short name for Lubyanskaya square and also used for the KGB prison) less frightening and horrifying to Moscovites after Stalin's death. People strongly associated that Lubyanskaya square with repressions and the secret police. Thus selectuing the location for the biggest specialized children's department store in Moscow was a step in softening the image of Lubyanskaya square. This was part of the De-Stalinization process that Chairman Khruschev launched at the 20th Party Congress (1956).
Management was Western-style, with commercials. Commercials and advertising were at the time a brand new concept uin the Soviet Union. Therecwere also placards, slogans, unique uniform style for managers and sellers, and a bright packs with a logo of the shop. You can see a logo on a top of the building. It was one of the first retail stores of such a kind in USSR. The packages had colorful, cheerful designs.
A good example of the importance of Detskiy Mir was how tights were brought to the Soviet Union and how they rapidly replaced long stockings in the late 1960s. A Detskiy Mir employee played a key role--Garnik Oganyesyan. He was born in Armavir, Russia (1928). He was Armenian-Russian by
nationality. He is now the Vice CEO of Detskiy Mir Inc. (OAO). He has been working DM" since its opening in 1957. He was a commercialdirector of "DM" 25 years long, since 1971. In his position at the company, he played a key role for replacing long stockings in the Soviet Union with tights. He writes in his memnoirs, "Children thighs - that is a special story. In the 1950s-60s, if you remember, all "future buildrers of Communism" were made to wear stockings attahced to a special belts-brassiers. You can imagine what boys thought about it, but we had no other clothes of such a kind in that time! Such a situation continued, until, when I made a business trip to East Germany (GDR). There I saw colorful and comfortable children tights for the first time. First I didn't understood what they were, but when I looked at them closer I understood. So at my own risk, without any orderds from "on high" (i.e. from beaurocrates in the Ministry of Trade, I purchased a quantity of these tights with my money and brought them to Moscow. Then I begn to visit factories. Not all the factory directors accepted my idea, but little by little in "Detskiy Mir" appeared cotton, then mixed, then woolen tights made in the USSR".
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