Where to buy gifts for the New Year and Christmas?

Buying gifts before the New Year and Christmas has long been a tradition of Muscovites. The most famous place to buy New Year and Christmas gifts is still the GUM Fair on Red Square in Moscow.

This fair is a tribute to the history of Russian trading traditions: in the center of the capital between Ilyinka and Nikolskaya they traded 300 years ago. This year, the designers of the capital’s GUM were inspired by Gzhel painting motifs, shopping arcades were decorated with compositions in a blue and white palette: a huge three-story New Year tree with a “Kremlin” star on top, snow arches, painting in the form of Gzhel flowers, the Snow Queen’s fabulous sleigh, big blue snowflakes…

Looking for gifts for children, wife, mother-in-law, colleagues? Don’t know what to give? Folk crafts to help you! We go to the GUM fair, where you can not only buy everything you need, but also make an unusual journey through the centers of folk crafts in our country.

New Year’s GUM is a completely different store: atmospheric music, crowds of people, festive fuss create a joyful, happy mood. People come here not only for shopping, but also just to look at all this splendor. The main idea of ​​the New Year’s decoration is that it will be a real Russian New Year, where national paraphernalia, national brands and crafts are collected. Outside, the design of all trade pavilions is made in the same style. Blue and white colors make the tents look like Santa Claus’ hut somewhere in a snowy forest. The owners are responsible for the interior design, and everything has been thought through to the smallest detail, making it as stylish and atmospheric as possible.

Beautiful ladies of all ages crowd around one tent. What attracted so many buyers? The magic tent-hut offers hand-knitted products from the down of the unique Orenburg goat – they are familiar to many and do not need to be introduced. The beauty of Orenburg – the Swan Princess in a snow-white downy-lace outfit became the main decoration of GUM – there were a lot of people who wanted to take a picture with her, even the strict guard could not resist such beauty!

The permanent head of the enterprise is Albina Absalyamova (who herself knitted her first scarf at the age of 6) – a member of the Chamber of Crafts in Moscow, a member of the Association of Folk Artistic Crafts of Russia. Offering goods to customers herself, she said: “The range is as wide as possible, ranging from downy shawls to souvenir angels and cats. There is no end to those who want to buy a useful and beautiful gift, which is not surprising: we offer customers more than 480 types of products, from traditional classics to fashionable modernity, from exquisite cobwebs, stoles to warm traditional scarves, scarves, plaids, unusual ponchos and capes and ending with socks and mittens for babies. Orenburg down jackets in their products use down only local domestic goat breeds – this down is famous for its thermal and healing properties – and the down is processed only by hand – with such processing, the down does not lose its properties. All products manufactured by Orenburg Pukhovnitsy LLC are exclusive. There are no identical products, as they are handmade. This season, the Orenburg shawl is a warm and fashionable accessory. It’s all about the fine fluff. Only 300 grams of down are removed from one goat per year – this is enough for two scarves. The down of the Orenburg goat is twice as thin as the down of the Angora goat.

Fashion houses and factories in Europe have repeatedly tried to take out the technology: they took away our Orenburg goats, combed them, but all in vain. Without severe frosts, the down became different – shorter, thicker, and lost its precious properties. As a result, the scarves were not so airy. The threads are spun according to science: if spinning wheels are needed for shawls, then a spindle is needed for thin cobwebs. Children start spinning on a spindle from the age of 6. Threads for real Orenburg shawls are made according to the old technology – silk is woven into the downy thread. Such a scarf can be worn for 20-25 years. But the craftswomen do not reveal all the secrets, and pass the technology from generation to generation. A real Orenburg scarf relieves headaches and helps with rheumatism. Shawls are checked for authenticity in simple ways. A real hand-knitted scarf weighs only 100 grams, a shawl – 300 grams, and a gossamer scarf must pass through the wedding ring! At first, the products do not look very fluffy, they become fluffy in the process of wearing.

We bought shawls, dressed up ourselves, and stocked up as a gift for our relatives. We admired the Yaroslavl multi-colored majolica, painted Zhostovo trays – as if we plunged into the summer, admired the Gzhel, and then our nose smelled a delicious smell, and led us to the next line, where they sold a chocolate burger from the Orenburg cooperative “Chocolate Artel”. This delicious masterpiece, I tell you, amazed even the metropolitan public spoiled with delicacies. It is impossible to pass by this fabulous house: the aroma of fresh pastries and chocolate envelops and enchants. Well, then the real magic begins, which we are all waiting for in anticipation of the brightest event of the year. Unexpected reincarnations are the main intrigue of all folk tales, and in the “Chocolate Artel” cooperators-confectioners were able to create, no, rather, “conjure up” a real holiday miracle.

The first impression is confusion when, in the context of a classic bun, instead of the usual meat patty, we see a chocolate one, moreover, decorated with a delicious natural cream and various bright toppings. It seems like an ordinary cake, but how interestingly presented! It turns out that the buyer, tempted by gastronomic delights, has something else to surprise: few people have tried chocolate shawarma. It is prepared in the same way as usual, but instead of a chicken billet, a large chocolate bar rotates on a spit. This is a special dense chocolate, and it took the confectioner a whole month to make such a “sausage”. Such unusual, tasty and completely natural domestic delicacies will take their rightful place in any showcase of sweets. The chocolate house also presents other products of magical cooperators from Orenburg. Here is a stunning variety of all kinds of sweets in the New Year theme, ginger, nuts and raspberries in chocolate, there are even chocolate beads! Buyers will be pleased with painted gingerbread with New Year and Christmas themes, natural candies, or a unique “ice cream” – waffle cone with meringue roses.

That’s what a report turned out – and useful, and beautiful, and delicious! The visitors were very pleased, representatives of folk crafts noted that they would gladly open outlets in the capital to please the townspeople with wonderful goods from the regions, and to prove to everyone that buying Russian is necessary, useful, pleasant!

Mikhail Kovalyov.

Author’s photo