The House of Books, the Book Shop

Categories / Literature. Book Publishing/Book Selling
THE HOUSE OF BOOKS (28 Nevsky Prospect) is the biggest book department store in St. Petersburg. It was housed in the former building of the Zinger company: the seven-storied building with a high corner tower crowned with a glass sphere is a shining example of art nouveau architecture (1902-04, architect P. Y. Suzor, sculptors A. G. Adamson, A. L. Ober). The Consulate of the USA was housed here in the 1910s. The building was given to the book storehouse of the Petrograd State Publishing House in 1919. Soon the House of Books became the main book store of Leningrad, at the beginning of the 1930s it passed to the jurisdiction of LenKOGIZ. In the years of the siege it continued to work intermittently up to the end of November 1942. It was opened anew, after the repairs, in November 1948. The trade in the House of Books is carried on the ground floor and on the first floor; approximately 20,000 books of various spheres of knowledge were in assortment in 2003. Departments of inquiry and bibliography and the department Book by Correspondence operate. There are subsidiaries on 30, Liteiny Avenue, 4, Bolshoy Avenue of Vasilievsky Island, 9, Shevchenko Street, 20, Lenina Street etc. Editorial offices of the journals Kniga i Revolyutsiya (The Book and the Revolution), Literaturnye Shtudii (Literary Studies), Zvezda (the Star), Leningrad Departments of the publishing houses the Children's Publishing House, the Soviet Writer, the Art, the Enlightment, Fiction, the union Leningrad Book etc. were housed in the House of Books in different years. Book trade was transferred stage-by-stage to 62 Nevsky Prospect due to the reconstruction of the building on 28 Nevsky Prospect.

References: Айзенберг Т. Д. Ленинградский Дом книги // Книга: Исслед. и материалы. М., 1972. Сб. 24. С. 198-209; Баренбаум И. Е. Книжный Петербург: Три века истории: Очерки изд. дела и кн. торговли. СПб., 2003. С. 388-391.

D. N. Cherdakov. Adamson Amandus
Auber Artemy Lavrentievich
Suzor Pavel Yulievich
Bolshoy Ave of Vasilievsky Island/Saint Petersburg, city, house 4
Lenina St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 20
Liteiny Ave/Saint Petersburg, city, house 30
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city, house 62
Nevsky prospect/Saint Petersburg, city, house 28
Shevchenko St./Saint Petersburg, city, house 9
Айзенберг Т. Д. Ленинградский Дом книги // Книга: Исслед. и материалы. М., 1972 Singer Company
1904