The Russian Shop

9 April 2021

Front cover of ‘Vassilisa the Beautiful’ – illustrated by Ivan Bilibin in 1900.

I recently gave a talk via Zoom about the life and work of the artist Ivan Bilibin.  I can’t remember the first time I saw Bilibin’s illustrated books of Russian fairy tales. It may have been when I was very young and my father used to bring me presents from The Russian Shop in High Holborn, which was near his office. This shop sold all sorts of goods from the various republics of the Soviet Union. Later I used to visit it myself – until it closed, some time in the 1970s possibly. There were subsequently a couple of much less stylish reincarnations on different sites – on The Strand, near Waterloo Bridge, and another under the arches near Embankment Underground station – but these sold mostly souvenirs and not the high-end products stocked in the original shop.

Doing a Google search for ‘The Russian Shop London’ brings up very little. The shop is mentioned in a footnote to an essay by Verity Clarkson entitled ‘Sputniks and Sideboards’: Exhibiting the Soviet ‘Way of Life’ in Cold War Britain, 1961-1979 (published in ‘A People Passing Rude – British Responses to Russian Culture’, edited by Anthony Cross, Open Book, 2012) . The footnote says ‘The December 1968 edition of Homes and Gardens continued to carry advertising for the Russian Shop – ‘Unusual gifts for Xmas from Russia’ – with an illustration of Matrioshka dolls’. I also found reminiscences from people who remember it being located on the ground floor of the Pearl Assurance Building at 262 High Holborn. I’m confused by this mention of no. 262 as advertisements, and drawings now in the archives of the Royal Institute of British Architects, give the address as 278-282 High Holborn.

Architectural drawings, now in the RIBA archives. Were these designs actually realised? The top one does look familiar to me.

I remember the shop having a very smart interior, with displays of porcelain tea-services and impressive items of modern technology. I imagine there were products referencing the Soviet achievements in space, with Yuri Gagarin having become the first cosmonaut in 1961. I don’t remember low-priced souvenirs as such, apart from the badges which were much more attractive and exotic than the round plastic or tin ones that were a popular collectible for British children at the time. But it seems to have been the accessible items of folk art, such as toys, that were the focus of their advertising. (I would have liked to have been given ‘wild birds and animals that whistle and growl’!)

Advertisement printed in a West End theatre programme, c. 1961

The Russian Shop sold watches, radios, cameras, binoculars, some food products such as caviar, Armenian brandy, Georgian red wine, badges, toys, hardstone carvings of animals, fine porcelain and ceramics from Russian and Ukrainian factories, amongst other very Soviet-style products. I think my first Matrioshka came from there. My father certainly bought me several ceramic pieces – a quirky colourful giraffe, which I no longer have, and four figures in traditional dress. Also two little papier mâché dolls in the dress of Uzbekistan and Armenia. (Quite recently I was delighted to be able to buy a whole set of these dolls in their original box, dated 1956. I suppose the Russian Shop must have sold the dolls individually). So I was enticed by the beauty of folk dress from Russia and the Soviet Republics at a very young age.

Russia, Belarus, Moldavia, Ukraine

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finno-Karelia

Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan

Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan,  Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan

Bilibin’s fairy tale books may have come from The Russian Shop – or I may have bought them myself a bit later from Collet’s International Bookshop in Charing Cross Road. How I loved that shop! It was a dark day when it closed for ever – apart from the fact that they had a closing-down sale and I was able to buy lots of fantastic art books on east European subjects for next to nothing. I still have all of those. Favourites would be a huge glossy book about the icon painter, Theophanes the Greek, and a monograph about the Bosnian artist, Mersad Berber (more about him in a future blogpost…)

I am often asked where my fascination for Russian culture comes from – do I perhaps have any Russian ancestors? (I don’t – as far as I know). There have been several circumstances over the years that have reinforced this interest, but it definitely started in The Russian Shop in High Holborn. If anyone reading this has any recollections of the shop, please let me know!