Moscow’s palatial Yeliseyevsky food hall closes after 120 years
Yeliseyevsky Food Emporium, an iconic food hall set in a palace in Moscow, is closing its doors after 120 years in business.
The supermarket on Tverskaya Street in the centre of the city first opened in 1901, in Imperial Russia.
It continued trading through a revolution and comfortably outlived the Soviet Union.
But ultimately it was the Covid-19 pandemic, along with a complicated legal agreement over the sale of the building, that led to its downfall.
Although it was once bustling and vibrant, the building is now largely empty, both of shoppers and of inventory.
Gleb Prostakov, a spokesman for Yeliseyevsky, told local media that the shop was closing because of legal issues.
From 2005 to 2015 the building was owned by the city of Moscow, and run by the supermarket chain Aliye Parusa.
Moscow Times reports that in 2015 the city agreed to sell the building to Aliye Parusa, but the contract for that sale is still in limbo.