Jelissejew Delicatessen (Moscow)
The delicatessen store Jelissejew ( Russian Елисеевский магазин ) in Moscow , like the store of the same name in Saint Petersburg, belonged to the renowned food chain of the Jelisejew brothers from its opening in 1901 to 1918 . Even today it is one of the finest supermarkets in the Russian capital. The store is located in central Moscow at 14 Tverskaya Street .
history
The two large Yelissejew stores in Moscow and Petersburg did not open until the beginning of the 20th century. However, several smaller shops existed decades earlier in the two metropolises of the Russian Empire , which were run by the merchant family Jelissejew (Russian: Елисеев ). The opening of the first store by the brothers Pyotr and Grigori Jelissejew - both former gardeners from the vicinity of Rybinsk - in the then capital Saint Petersburg in 1813 is considered to be the beginning of the so-called "Yelissejew Empire" .
The company, which since then has been officially known as the “Jelissejew Brothers” trade cooperative , has achieved considerable sales success after a relatively short period of time through the acquisition and timely distribution of high-quality colonial goods in Madeira , India and other southern countries. As early as the 1820s, the Jelissejew brothers had their own ships with which they transported various tropical fruits, wines, tea and coffee to Petersburg.
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After Pyotr Yelisseev's death in 1825, his widow and three sons took over the business, and Pyotr's grandson, Grigory Grigoryevich Yelisseyev, led the empire from the late 19th century. It was precisely on his initiative that the chain of three large delicatessen shops came into being a little later. The first of the three was the store in Moscow, two years later its St. Petersburg counterpart opened on Nevsky Prospect, and a little later a similar store was opened in Kiev .
Tverskaya Street was chosen as the location for the Moscow gourmet temple , which was already one of the noblest addresses in the city at that time and where the residence of the Moscow Governor General was also located. A mansion from the late 18th century by the renowned architect Matwei Kasakow with a spacious inner courtyard was acquired by the Jelissejew company for this purpose and extensively converted, whereby the details of the renovation were kept top secret until the opening day, which was the curiosity the Muscovite additionally reinforced. The shop opened in the summer of 1901. The new shop surprised the public at that time not only with an unparalleled range of delicacies from all over the world, but also with its extremely sumptuous, baroque interior. The main sales hall, which is very spacious in all three dimensions, was built on the site of the former inner courtyard and, with its imposing sculptures, columns and chandeliers, was almost reminiscent of an oriental palace.
A short time after the October Revolution of 1917, the entire Yelissejew empire with the three shops was forcibly nationalized. The owner, Grigory Grigoryevich Jelissejew, emigrated to France, where he died in 1949. Moscow's Yeliseyev store was officially renamed Gastronom No. 1 , although its original name was far more common even decades later. The assortment of the Yelissejew shops was also rather meager during the Soviet times . The only reminder of the heyday at the beginning of the 20th century was the unchanged, magnificent architecture. The store hit the headlines in 1983 when its director at the time, Yuri Sokolov, was sentenced to death on a particularly large scale for corruption and unfaithfulness and was executed by shooting a short time later.
In the early 2000s, the now aging Moscow Yelissejew store was acquired by the Russian retail chain Alyje Parussa and extensively renovated. The completely renovated store opened at the end of 2003 and has since been one of the finest supermarkets in Moscow, where even everyday groceries are usually more expensive than in most other retail establishments.
literature
- Anatolij Rubinov: Istorija trëch moskovskich magazinov. Rascvet i krach Imperii Jelisejevych . Nowoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, Moscow 2007, ISBN 5-86793-519-1 , pp. 5–102
Web links
- Official website of the store (Russian, English )
- russland.ru: Yeliseyev store reopened in Moscow
- Photo gallery on aktuell.ru
Coordinates: 55 ° 45 ′ 50.9 ″ N , 37 ° 36 ′ 25.1 ″ E