Major Shopping Areas

Just about any souvenir, bauble, or item of clothing can be found just off Red Square, at the two major shopping centers: GUM and Okhotny Ryad. Heading up Tverskaya Street, you'll find more variety, and you can enjoy the long stroll and historic plaques interspersed with shoe stores and specialty food shops. One to look out for is Eliseyevsky Gastronom, a refurbished version of an elite 19th-century food emporium that now offers Russia's most expensive chocolates, premium vodkas, and smaller and more affordable treats such as tasty Russian tea cookies and salted herring. For a dazzling glimpse at the Russian new rich, wander through the boutiques of the world's top fashion and jewelry designers in gleaming Tretyakovsky Proyezd, designed to replicate a 19th-century gallery. It's not far from Red Square, between Teatralny Proyezd and Nikolskaya Ulitsa.

The Arbat has fashioned itself as Moscow's premier shopping district, though most of the souvenir booths lining the center of the pedestrian street are overpriced and seem to offer the same merchandise as their neighbors. The Arbat's better shopping deals can be found in its few remaining crafts shops, which sell boxes made of carved birch wood in traditional Russian patterns, hand-embroidered bed and table linens, and traditional Russian caftans and gowns. Look for children's sizes, too -- some make good choices for holiday or Halloween outfits. Prices drop as you move west along the street. The New Russian Store is worth a peek inside; the tongue-in-cheek boutique of traditional Russian handiwork caters to -- and makes fun of -- Russia's extravagant nouveau riche. On a recent visit I saw a delicate ceramic cellphone and a lacquer box painted with a scene of thuglike businessmen being fed grapes by scantily clad nymphs.

A less abundant but more original shopping area is Pyatnitskaya Street in Zamoskvarechye, south of the Kremlin. Several independent artists sell their paintings and sculptures in galleries and small shops here, along with traditional Russian crafts. This is also where Moscow's few vintage clothing stores reside, plus a few shops offering secondhand designer wear.

Moscow's shopping mecca for foreign and Russian visitors alike is the huge open-air bazaar at Izmailovsky Park, in eastern Moscow outside the Garden Ring. The rough-and-tumble stalls and garage-sale feel of a few years back have been replaced by organized rows of vendors behind a cheerful, towering facade of carved wood. On weekends an entrance fee of 50 rubles is charged. Inside, you'll find 10 times the selection of matryoshka nesting dolls than the Arbat displays, plus Russian space-program memorabilia, malachite chess sets, intricate and original jewelry, blue-hued Uzbek plates, surprisingly-patterned quilts, Soviet propaganda posters, booths and booths of lacquer boxes, wooden toys, and much more. Most prices are negotiable, and all vendors speak some English. Get off at the Izmailovsky Park metro stop and follow the crowd.

Muscovites often spend their weekends at the open-air food and clothing markets scattered around town, where they buy produce, meat, diapers, winter boots, cleaning supplies, and any number of things at prices much lower than those in department stores or supermarkets. The quality ranges from cheap Chinese toy trucks to fine Russian-made shearling coats. If you're curious, check out the food and clothing markets at Izmailovsky (to the left of the souvenir bazaar) or Fili (btw. the Bagrationovskaya metro station and the Gorbushka electronics market).

The Shopping Centers

The concept of the shopping mall as North America knows it remains foreign to Russian shoppers, though they have their own version of shopping centers that serve the same purpose. Moscow's premier shopping gallery is GUM (pronounced goom), which stands for State Department Store. This magnificent, oblong building extends nearly the full eastern side of Red Square, and is organized into three open arcades of three floors connected by curved bridges and anchored by a fountain at the center. The shops bear little resemblance to the 19th-century stalls of GUM's early days or to the rows of drab, identical stores that inhabited it in Soviet times. Today, designers such as Christian Dior, Max Mara, and their Russian counterparts fill the most prestigious Red Square-facing storefronts, and shoe and clothing stores fill the upper floors. The food selection is disappointing; the several bland cafes seem designed for people-watching rather than for culinary enjoyment. (The exception is Bosco Bar.)

Ordinary shoppers prefer the partially underground Okhotny Ryad mall, a grandiose project by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov that attracted the ire of conservationists for digging into treasured archaeological sites just outside the Kremlin walls. It's now a thriving, three-story shopping haven densely packed with stores for nearly all pocketbooks. Souvenirs here are pricey, but the food court on the bottom floor is a cheap and reliable bet for children, with international standards and their Russian fast-food rivals. The mall's design is eclectic, with a shallow dome on top shaped like the Northern Hemisphere, and terraces below overlooking fountains decorated with sculptures from Russian fairy tales.

A more upscale choice nearby is TsUM (pronounced "tsoom"), or Central Department Store, which has some prestigious international brands among its broad and democratic selection, and whose stores offer frequent, deep discounts. Russia's other shopping centers are architecturally bland and largely aimed at the new rich. One such spot, useful if you've forgotten your umbrella or your purse strap snaps, is the Europe Shopping Center in front of Kievsky Train Station (2 Kievsky Station Sq.), seven floors of clothes, accessories, groceries and a top-floor disco. Another is the Atrium in front of Kursky Train Station (10 Zemlyanoi Val; metro: Kurskaya), with several top- and midrange clothing shops, a well-stocked supermarket, and lots of clean toilets.

Gorbushka Electronics Market

For a mind-boggling selection of software, music, DVDs, videos, and computer games, head to Gorbushka, Moscow's biggest "underground" market for legal and illegal electronic goods. In the 1990s, it was upgraded from a chaotic outdoor venue at Gorbunov Park to a spacious, clean warehouse up the street, on Ulitsa Barklaya (it's visible from the Bagrationovskaya metro station). Despite years of industry pressure, Russia remains a major producer of pirated software, music, and movies. The good news is that efforts to fight piracy have brought the prices of licensed goods down to levels well below what you'll pay at home -- for example, the latest Die Hard DVD was available in an official Russian version the same time it was available in the United States, but at half the price. At Gorbushka, the selection includes more and more licensed products, and a fair share of obscure Russian recordings from decades past. The enormous hall for vendors of CDs, DVDs, MP3s, videos, cassettes, and software is surrounded by a larger network of minishops selling electronics of every kind, often quality brand names at prices below the department stores'. It's a good place to pick up camera accessories or cheap batteries. If you want to buy movies, keep in mind that not all DVDs can be viewed on your player at home, and that not all offer English versions, so check with the vendor just in case. Russian videos are in PAL format (not compatible with most North American VCRs), and even American films are voiced over in Russian unless indicated. Be prepared for crowds, especially on weekends.

Gorbushka offers a mix of legal products and pirated goods, but beware of the stands you'll see in metro stations and at street corners around town: Their only trade is the illegal stuff, from the latest Hollywood blockbuster to CD-ROMs packed with Microsoft programs. Taking pirated goods out of Russia is illegal, and Customs officers can (though rarely do) seize them when you leave and levy a small fine.