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Grandeur returns to former Russian mall

By Edmund Mander

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- It is not surprising that St. Petersburg Passage, one of Russia's first malls built 100 years before the first in the United States, was a pretty grand place: Czar Nicholas I took a direct hand in its design.

Now the economic reforms initiated by President Boris Yeltsin are providing this retailing palace with a renaissance.

People entering St. Petersburg Passage -- "passage" is the Russian term for arcade or shopping gallery -- on its opening day, May 22, 1848, found themselves in a 540-foot-long hall, with daylight pouring through a double-glazed atrium 73 feet above their heads. When night came, the light blazed from gaslit chandeliers and lamps -- gaslight was then a high-tech novelty present only in the homes of the wealthiest -- suspended from ornately decorated ceilings.

Among the approximately 60 upscale stores lining the galleries around the central hall were milliners, tailors, upholsterers, corsetieres, haberdashers and a range of other merchants ready to provide just about everything the average palace and mansion inhabitant could possibly need. Russia's Francophile aristocracy now had a grand shopping destination it could call its own, modeled after the atriumed shopping venues in Paris.

"The Passage was branded 'the center of elegant shopping and elegant promenading for elegant people,' " according to Valery Zelensky, director general of the Passage Private Trading and Manufacturing Co. Ltd., St. Petersburg. Its customers included the aristocracy, high ranking army officers and government officials.

Those who regard the concept of combining good food, entertainment, services and retail in a mall as a recent U.S. innovation might wish to think again: St. Petersburg Passage provided its visitors with all three. Shoppers looking for a bite could choose from three restaurants, cafes and pastry shops. The Passage offered theater, a music room, and a "Wax Cabinet" featuring elaborately dressed mannequins that could move and dance. Early in this century a cinema opened. There were also knife sharpeners and, later on, a savings bank, hairdressing salon and photo shop.

In the late 1850s, The Passage's owners also began seeing it as something of a town center, just as U.S. developers have done with their malls in recent years. Only The Passage went a lot further. Its owners invited scholars and military professionals to give lectures, and public discussions held there drew "huge audiences," Mr. Zelensky said. Russia's leading writers and playwrights of the day, including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Turgenev, Apollon Maikov and many others came to give readings.

The Czar personally approved the ultimate design for The Passage, having demanded changes to the original plan. He also arranged public funding that made it possible to provide running water to every room in the building.

"The monarch issued a special decree, ordering that a restaurant be opened," according to Mr. Zelensky, noting that even though The Passage was a private enterprise, its plans were the topic of government cabinet meetings.

Since its grand opening, followed by a major refurbishment at the turn of the century, The Passage has endured revolution, warfare, and a chronically stagnant economic system that limited the supply and quality of consumer goods and food for decades. Within a few years of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, with most of its customers either murdered or stripped of their wealth, the private stores had closed, and the building was turned into a cooperative supermarket. A decade later, this gave way to a massive state-owned department store.

During the World War II siege of St. Petersburg -- by then renamed Leningrad -- The Passage's employees saved the building by, among other actions, plucking incendiary bombs from its roof with metal tongs. Consequently, although it was damaged, The Passage was spared the devastation that the Germans inflicted on most of the city's other architectural gems.

But while the building had survived onslaughts by Bolsheviks and Nazis, by 1989 it nevertheless needed attention. During The Passage's long period of state ownership, the government had been happy to pocket its profits, but had not been so ready to plow money back into much needed renovations.

However, if Czar Nicholas I gave The Passage its start in life, President Boris Yeltsin has provided it with a second wind by returning the country to a free market system. Since the fall of communism, The Passage has been turned into a publicly owned trading company, and there is an ongoing program to renovate the building and expand the activities within it.

At present there are no concrete plans to turn The Passage back into a mall. Today, it operates a department store, with 64,500 square feet of trading space and 1,200 staff, selling primarily womenswear. Although it looks like a mall, with many brands occupying their own windows and selling space, none of that space is leased to retailers.

"We have already on sale goods of foreign companies, but do not so far lease shopping areas," Mr. Zelensky said. "But we do not rule out this form of business."

Some areas could be leased when renovations are complete on a recently purchased building facing Italyanskaya Street -- one of the two parallel streets The Passage runs between. This will double the shopping area, Mr. Zelensky said.

The Passage is undergoing a complete overhaul over the next five years designed to restore its original appearance. The work will include the replacement of the glass roof, gallery floors and molding, and the installation of escalators, according to Mr. Zelensky. Some of the work on the building's detail calls for exceptional craftsmanship. Fortunately, in this museum city, with its Hermitage and other architectural masterpieces that were painstakingly restored after the war, such skills are not lacking.

Plans also call for the installation of a restaurant, casino and beauty parlor.

On the personnel front, store assistants are being put through customer-relations training -- a discipline that was never valued highly during the Soviet era, but now is critical in the competitive marketplace.

Approximately 289,000 shoppers come each day to buy merchandise supplied by Escada, Estee Lauder, Revlon and other retailers from Europe and the United States, according to Mr. Zelensky. The center also opened a 10,764-square-foot supermarket in 1993, offering more than 3,000 food items imported from Europe, the United States and Africa. The center also is negotiating with companies that it hopes will supply more menswear, jewelry, perfumery and home furnishings.

Customers have average to high incomes by Russian standards, Mr. Zelensky said. To entice them to come more often, The Passage has introduced a shopper loyalty program that entitles customers to discounts.

The Passage also is ideally located to attract out-of-town visitors.

"Tourists often visit our Passage," Mr. Zelensky said, explaining that various fashionable hotels as well as theaters and museums lie close by. "The Passage is situated in the very center at the crossing of main transport thoroughfares and metro lines."

Much work lies ahead. It is one thing to build a reputation for quality, good service and elegance in a prosperous country like the United States, but doing so in a country just emerging from decades of stagnation is another.

"In today's Russia, with its notoriously low per capita incomes, those who endeavor to keep their standards of service high have things the hard way," according to Mr. Zelensky. "They must be meticulous in ensuring that their service is both superb and affordable."

Balancing these criteria is like navigating ships between the mythical Scylla and Charybdis, he observed. Nevertheless, the groundwork has been laid with Russia's economic reforms, and 150 years almost to the month since the grand opening of St. Petersburg Passage, its owners and staff are striving to restore its grandeur.