What did I know when I was a child about the glorious past of the Victoria Store? Nothing.
The Victoria Store – 50 stores in one – was the slogan that made it famous during Ceausescu’s time.
I never counted to see if there were really 50 stores, because I would probably have fallen asleep like during counting sheep…
Unirea and Cocor were familiar to me during my childhood. The Victoria store, located on the corner of Calea Victoriei and Lipscani, seemed to me to be less interesting to go to. I don’t know why. In his area, my mother only took me to “Romarta Copiilor” (“Children’s Store”) and to “La trei ursuleti” (The “Three Little Bears” Store). Or were there two of them?…
So I have very few memories of what it was like.
However, I read about it before, when it happened to come to my attention.
That’s how I found out that the Victoria Store was the first large department store in Romania, inaugurated in 1928. It was modeled after its bigger and better-looking brother – the Lafayette Galleries in Paris, from which it took its name. Yes, yes, we also had Lafayette Galleries in Bucharest!
A luxurious, modern store, equipped with an elevator and with a red marble floor, being proud to be supplied directly from Paris.
Well, the history is longer than that, but I am coming to the present: the Lafayette Galleries in Bucharest became the “Victoria Store” after the nationalization in 1948, keeping its functionality. And, over time, the slogan “50 stores in one” gave it a new identity.
I took a nostalgic stroll through the Victoria Store long after the Revolution and, years later, today… On a spring day in 2023.
FROM THE LAFAYETTE GALLERIES TO BUCUR OBOR
I enter the store and I feel like I’m in a… church, it’s so quiet 🙂 I’m even afraid to cough, so that I don’t hear someone shouting: “silence, please!”.
A desolation that hurts, no less.
Luckily, a little further on, on the main aisle, three saleswomen are chatting cheerfully. In the middle of the store, because they really cannot bother anyone, as there are no customers.
“I don’t like the parquet cleaning solution at all, I have to look for something else” – one of them complains. And this is how a small debate starts that could be a subject of analysis for advertising agencies.
A lot of clothes get my attention. Displayed, hung, colored, packed, unpacked. I feel like in Bucur Obor (a very popular and very bazaar-like store in Bucharest). A multitude of products piled up in certain spaces rented per square meter, probably.
During the tour of the ground floor, I see clothes, paintings, mugs, glasses, old objects, watches, hats of all kinds, and then many, many children’s clothes, one more than the other appropriate… for a wedding.
A white-haired saleswoman arranges her cloths, at the “fabrics department” (I think this is what it was called, right?).
The lady seems to me to have been here from the beginning of the store, but she begs to differ: she has only been working in the Victoria Store for 15 years, before she worked in the same department, but in Cocor… wait for it: for 40 years!!!
Practically, for her entire life, she measured cloth, silk, velvet, cotton, satin, taffeta, lace, linen, brocade, which made some ladies, some tables, some windows or some sofas happy.
Do people still buy materials? – I ask her, curious. She shakes her head saying “not really”, resignedly. She tells me that the glorious times have been long gone, ever since she was working in the other store.
THE FIRST STORE WITH ESCALATORS
Did you know that the Victoria Store was the first store that had escalators in Romania?!? Cool!
Now it’s probably the only store that doesn’t have any functioning escalators 🙂
This fact is also signaled by the Mannequin Guard and Protection Service:
You can’t pass through here, this pale young man who can be stripped of his clothes at any time (if you have some cash or a card with you) makes us understand…
Ok, ok, I understand, no escalator works here. It’s okay, I’m taking the elevator! Especially since I hear that it is the original one, with the lever and the elevator lady!
No can do: the elevator is parked, because it just broke down, the nearby sellers tell me. I am referring to the elevator with number 1, on which it is written “use elevator no. 3”.
And even if I wanted to take the elevator with number 2, I wouldn’t have been able to. A chair and a fire extinguisher block the access to the door, so the elevator with no. 2 has become just an advertising wall, nothing more. And he urges you to head towards elevator no. 3. Well, so be it, let’s see what’s up with elevator no. 3.
A freight elevator, still in use, with a chair for the attendant, is having its beauty sleep. I think the grill is the only element left from its glory days, otherwise, it is new from head to toe and has buttons, not the praised lever.
I take it up the stairs. I find out from those who sell watches that they are the original stairs, from the beginning, those famous red marble stairs, from the time when the store lived in luxury and opulence.
But, during the post-revolutionary renovations, the red marble on the floor was replaced with sandstone. And, in some departments, with carpeting.
The showcase on the stairs is meant to be a window to Paris, so that we don’t forget the brotherhood with the Lafayette Galleries.
I would have said that the chandeliers and all the other lights are also items from the store’s youth, but no, I shouldn’t be fooled by the appearance.
On the 1st floor, I walk along paths made up of showcases, stands, clothes. Not a soul buying.
A saleswoman up on the ladder that helpes to hang the clothes in a more visible way, struggles to remove the string of Christmas lights that had decorated the furniture. I offer to help her, but she politely refuses me, because another sales colleague, who doesn’t have clients either, comes to give her a helping hand.
I am looking at some kitchen cloths with a popular pattern. The lady seems to have been waiting for this for so long, so she starts to open them one by one, to show me that they have a different pattern. I thank her, but I tell her that there is no need to open them all.
“Well, come on, we’re glad you stopped here, we get the chance to shake off a little dust if we show them to you!” – she answers me with all her heart. And she praises them to me saying they wipe well.
I have the feeling that every saleswoman I talk to is happy to have a guest… It seems that someone brings them out of their everyday sleep-like state and they are ready to give you information about the goods they deal with. And not only.
“The Victoria store had 5 floors” – another saleswoman reminds me. “Now only the ground floor, the 1st and 2nd floors are working”. Well, out of the second floor, only a small part is used, as I see from the chain blocking the entrance into a very large department.
And at the retouching workshop, yet another chain. Only the guard dog is missing…
On the floor dedicated to gentlemen… not a single man!
There are only men without heads, who stand as bodyguards of the broken elevator and the stairs you are not allowed to climb.
From the top floor of the store, they tell me that a part is taken by the restaurant around the corner, which attracted customers from the first day with its igloos on the terrace – I think they were the only ones with something like that at the time.
Otherwise, unused space.
“You can rent, because there is a lot of space!” – a saleswoman encourages me. The truth is that, with all the clothes I have lying around in my closets, I’d be able to make one department in the Victoria Store!
I ask whose the shop is now and I find out that it belongs to “a former football player, Munteanu. But not Dorinel”.
I go downstairs. I hear the song “Shall we meet on Saturday evening” and I expect to see a gramophone somewhere. But there is only a laptop on a counter and a saleswoman smiling nostalgically…
A young man with his bicycle is studying some jewelry.
A lady buys a green blouse after getting her husband’s approval. Yuhuuu! “Sold!” could be shouted.
It seems like a victory for the Victoria store. But one flower does not make a garland in “50 stores in one”. Another 49 stores are waiting to sell something too. Well, however many are still left…
It is hard, in 2023, with malls in every neighborhood.
If the owner were to open a games room, a bakery, a pharmacy, a supermarket or a bank here, the shop would be filled! 🙂
Seriously speaking now, in my mind, the chance for this historic store to shine again is to become a store specializing in something. So that you knew that you go to the Victoria Store because it is full of antiques. Or it may be the one where you can find all the underwear brands, like Victoria’s Secret… Or you know that you come here specifically because it’s the coolest gadget store, in the most beautiful Art Deco environment. Or the biggest souvenir shop in Romania.
And, even if some would come just to ride the lift with the lever and the elevator lady, it would still be a win…
Until then, let’s take advantage, I’d say, of the silence in the store and have a nap 🙂
