Some Window-Shopping by Soviets : Business: Surrounded by hundreds of shoppers, the visitors toured the 269-store Glendale Galleria. They didn’t buy anything, but they liked what they saw.
Nikolay Akimovich Medvedev, the deputy minister of Soviet forestry, walked past Nordstrom, Eddie Bauer, The Limited, the Broadway, Thom McAn and Mrs. Fields.
Then the stocky, balding visitor ate lunch at the noisy Glendale Galleria food center, surrounded by hundreds of shoppers and at least 10 competitive fast-food restaurants.
And after his perestroika -era visit to the Galleria, one of the largest shopping centers in Southern California with 269 businesses, Medvedev pronounced that what he had seen was good.
“I’m impressed by the big volume of goods and the varieties,” said the gray-suited Medvedev, who resembles Nikita S. Khrushchev. “It’s very well thought out.”
Medvedev led a four-man Soviet delegation that toured the Galleria Wednesday to study small businesses at a time when the Soviet government, under Mikhail Gorbachev, is proposing to introduce competition to the nation’s economy by allowing private ownership of property.
The group, scheduled to return to the Soviet Union on Thursday after nine days in the United States, also included Vitaliy Yuriyevich Ozira, government consultant on economic reform; Dmitriy Sergeyevich Beskurnikov, a staff member of the state commission for foreign economic relations, and Vladimir Yegorovich Fryzhkin, a mayor.
Arriving at the mall around noon, the curious Soviets fired questions as Galleria General Manager Lora L. Dubbs guided them on a 30-minute tour of the center, which is bedecked with carpeted floors, brick facades and curved glass ceilings. Reporters and photographers trailed at their heels.
“Who had the idea to build this system?” asked Medvedev, who said it was the first time he had been in a large, private shopping center.
“The developer,” said Dubbs, a slender woman in a fashionable blue dress.
“Who was the investor? Where did the money come from?”
“A partnership,” Dubbs replied.
“What about alternative stores--Mom- and-Pop stores at the corner--because you do not have public transportation for everyone to get here?”
“Actually there is some public transportation,” Dubbs said, “although most Southern Californians come by car.”
“Do you have competitors?”
“Yes, more than enough.”
Passing Mrs. Fields, the Soviets asked about the pleasant aroma.
“That’s cookies. You should have one before you go,” Dubbs said.
Afterward, a reporter asked if they would like a Galleria in their country.
“For our own country, a big store such as this is a bit too much,” Medvedev said.
“You have a lot private cars here,” Ozira explained. “If you have such a big department store in Russia, you would have to arrange shuttle buses for transportation.”
“They don’t intend to duplicate our free enterprise system, but they intend to co-opt certain aspects,” said Oscar Wright, the Small Business Administration regional administrator who accompanied the group on its five-day tour of California.
“They’re particularly interested in banking incentives to support small business. How do banks differentiate between those who they will give loans to and those who they will refuse?”
The Soviets didn’t make any purchases during their Galleria tour and said they weren’t ready to accept every aspect of the Galleria’s glitzy display of capitalism. “We just want to see the system,” Medvedev said.
