Architecture: Simplicity under Russian icing: Russia might be struggling to adapt to the free market, but one of Moscow's shopping centres puts Western malls to shame, says Mark Crick

JUST a cannon shot from the Kremlin, on the other side of Red Square, stands GUM. Not a Russian rubber factory but one of Europe's oldest and most beautiful shopping malls, GUM has recently been redecorated to celebrate its 100th anniversary and to prepare to face new demands.

Popular opinion in the West may liken the possibility of a shopping trip in Russia to that of a winter sports holiday in the Amazon. A visit to GUM, however, shows that our rush to build Post-Modern shopping malls is but a poor attempt to emulate the elegance and practicality of this Russian precursor.

The less-than-elegant name stands for Gosudarstvenny Universalny Magazin (State Universal Store). It provides the same service as its Western equivalents - shops and stalls on three levels sell clothing, food, fabric, toiletries, gifts and electrical goods.

Designed by the architect Alexander Pomerantsev in 1888 and completed in 1893, in the time of Tsar Alexander III, the shopping mall that became GUM in 1953 was designed to the most imperial specifications. The style of richly decorated architecture was self- consciously Russian: Byzantine, medieval and renaissance Russian details were layered over the massive structure. The principal sources of decoration were the old churches and palaces of Rostov Veliky and Borisoglebsk, but with French-style mansard roofs and other high-Victorian embellishments. Behind the grandiose facades, however, GUM is straightforward, a surprisingly light and elegant building making much use of steel and glass, one of the first Russian buildings to do so, and virtually unchanged since it was built.

Inside, three arcades are joined side by side to form a vast, covered shopping area 820ft long and 295ft wide; these have most of the features of malls built in the West in the 1980s. GUM has multi-level shopping with balconies connected by walkways and bridges offering magnificent views of the levels below and great glazed roof above. There are no unsightly escalators to spoil the grand vistas or prevent daylight penetrating the deepest spaces. Administration, storage and workshops for repairs and production are in the upper level.

While the architecture of GUM stands up admirably to any comparisons the West can make, the contents of some of the shops are less inspiring. The grandiloquence of the architecture is hardly reflected in, for example, the photographic shop I visit. This resembles the physics storeroom at my old school more than any known Western camera shop. Strange bits of film and plastic are displayed beside packets of chemicals and plastic spools on which you wind your own film. I imagine I have the same awestruck look on my face as the farmer alongside me from Kazakhstan.

Upstairs in one of the lofty cafeterias people are queuing for lunch. A selection of warm dishes is on offer: chicken and beetroot, beef and pearl barley and some sweet pastries. There is a yellowish juice and a thick milky liquid to drink. The beef, a juice and a pastry cost me 31 roubles (about 15p). There are no seats in the cafeteria, a common arrangement in Moscow, and I eat standing at a high table. A tired- looking woman enters and asks me in English if there is anywhere to sit and eat. When I answer no, her shoulders drop and she walks off.

GUM is not as busy as I had expected. The administrative office tell me that 5,000 staff are employed to cope with 350,000 visitors a day - about 50,000 more than Harrods on the first day of its annual sale. In terms of size, GUM could easily swallow Harrods whole. But the growing trade on the streets, the increase in hard-currency shops and the power of the black market are a drain on this huge mall. The only crowded shop is the hard-currency store Karstadt, which has a permanent queue.

GUM's staff is nearly all female; dressed in sky-blue overalls, women push huge loads of merchandise around the mall, along balconies and over its many walkways and bridges, like porters in some great railway terminus.

Unfortunately, there is not a balance of supply and demand at GUM. Many shops and stalls have little on sale. One assistant was in charge of only two pairs of shoes, another had only a few bottles of scent.

In the old days this might have been enough to attract the huge crowds that GUM was built for, but in 1993, when almost anything can be bought on the street, from a dictionary to a Saint Bernard dog, it is not surprising that GUM is not always a shopper's first choice. As a place to retreat from the Moscow winter, however, it is unsurpassed, and I have yet to find a Western shopping mall where I can walk for five minutes without suffering an attack of artificial-environment sickness, caused by kitsch architecture, piped music, glitter and glare.

My visit to GUM was on a hot, spring afternoon. Two men walked up to a stall selling fur hats and tried them on. They bought one each. As they left the store they were followed by a man and woman proudly carrying a large cardboard box marked JVC. Fur hats bought with roubles and electrical goods from the hard-currency store: two worlds brought together under one magnificent, centenarian roof.

(Photograph omitted)