Sapa-dpa Moscow
The Kremlin had ordered the removal from Moscow’s Red Square of a giant suitcase advertising French fashion label Louis Vuitton installed near the Lenin Mausoleum, Russian news agencies reported yesterday.
The GUM department store, which put up the carpet bag, did not have all the required permits, Kremlin spokesman Viktor Khrekov told the RIA Novosti news agency.
The exhibit, which commemorates the 120th anniversary of the adjacent GUM mall where Louis Vuitton has its flagship Russian store, is 30m long and 9m tall, according to the Paris-based company.
The mausoleum where Bolshevik leader Lenin’s mummified body is on display nearby is 24m long and 12m tall.
GUM said it had asked Louis Vuitton to remove the suitcase, which was installed to mark the department store’s 120th anniversary.
On Tuesday, GUM said it had all the necessary permits.
“We are taking into account public opinion and the fact that the agreed dimensions were overstepped,” GUM said in a statement, according to the Interfax news agency.
LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton did not comment.
The publicity stunt, which was to house a charity exhibition about the history of travel, had drawn criticism from legislators, who regard Russia’s most famous square as sacred.
“(Red Square) is a sacred place of the Russian state,” Sergei Obukhov, a Communist legislator, said.
Alexander Sidyakin, a legislator for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, had filed a complaint with the antitrust watchdog asking it to determine if the French luxury goods maker violated advertising laws, according to his website.
The installation was of “unreasonably gigantic size” and violated the architectural feel of the entire complex, Sidyakin said in his complaint. It obscured views of St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin towers and might inconvenience Muscovites and tourists alike, Sidyakin said, noting that such advertising was not allowed at a Unesco World Heritage Site.
Observers said yesterday that the authorities had changed their mind in the face of public pressure.
Such a giant object could never have been installed without consent from the Kremlin and Security Services, said Gennady Gudkov, a former opposition legislator who served in the Soviet KGB and its successor organisation, the Federal Security Service.
“The fact that they now claim there was no consent just shows their inconsistency,” Gudkov said.