Apple Opening Up Shop In Russia
The original Stalin-era Moskva Hotel opened in 1935 as part of a rebuilding plan for Moscow. It anchors the northern end of Red Square, is 300 feet from the “zero kilometer” marker for all Russian roads and within steps of several main subway stations. The original architecture featured an imposing stone façade for passersby, and a window view of Communist military parades for hotel room guests. Over 75 years, it has hosted hundreds of world figures and celebrities, and even more high-level Russian dignitaries and politicians.
Now IfoAppleStore.com the site that follows Apple’s retail efforts, reports that the company’s top retail brass flew to Moscow to negotiate a lease inside the trade gallery of the hotel.
It would be Apple’s first store in Russia, and indicates a significant commitment to expand the company’s chain into Eastern Europe. According to sources, Sr. V-P Retail Ron Johnson and V-P Real Estate Bob Bridger visited Moscow at the end of March and toured the three-level retail space in the future Four Seasons Hotel. The two were seen examining a 16,000 square-foot, two-level space as a possible Apple store. At the time, no lease had been signed, but a decision could be made soon, sources say. Right now, the eastern-most Apple store in Europe is the just-opened Altmarkt-Galerie in Dresden (Germany). It’s the only store within a former Communist state, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). There are no Apple stores in any of the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union (USSR), which dissolved in 1991.
Moscow is home to 11.5 million residents which had a growing middle-class—and potential Apple products buyers—before the 2008 global economic downturn. The city hosts millions of tourists each year, almost all visiting Red Square and the surrounding area where the Hotel Moskva is located. But tourist visits are down by 10 percent from pre-2008 levels, and only slowly increasing. Moscow and other Russia cities are optimistic that the upcoming Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup soccer matches will bring more tourists and improve the country’s economy.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
