One of the oldest supermarkets in St. Petersburg is closing. Nevsky survived the 1990s, but lost to marketplaces and delivery services

The Nevsky store on Bolshevikov Avenue, 6k.1 has been operating for more than 50 years - since 1975. This is one of the few typical Soviet supermarkets preserved in St. Petersburg.

Although cheaper chain supermarkets opened nearby, customers continued to come to Nevsky. Mostly pensioners. Often - for discounted goods. In 2026, the store’s shareholders announced the voluntary liquidation of Nevsky - it will close on July 1, and Semishagoff will appear in its place.

“Paper” went to Nevsky during its last days of work and spoke with customers and employees.

Nevsky opened in the 1970s and was reconstructed only once

Most of the shelves and display cases at Nevsky are already empty. “Sale” and “discount” signs are posted throughout the store, and at the very entrance there are carts with discounted goods. Only the bread and deli departments continue to be replenished.

The history of one of the oldest surviving supermarkets in St. Petersburg will end on July 1. From this day on, its employees will be dismissed and the legal entity will be liquidated. Later, the Semishagoff store will open in the building.

And Nevsky opened in 1975. It was built according to a standard design by architect Oleg Velikoretsky. The idea was to have a self-service food store with a cafeteria and an ordering department with a retail area of ​​1,200 square meters.

Initially, the building looked like a low block with a sales area: wide glazed walls, a frieze made of aluminum sheets with an emblem in the form of the letter “U”. After the collapse of the USSR, plans emerged for the reconstruction of Nevsky. It was carried out only in 1999-2001: the production premises were expanded, the entrance was moved to the terrace and design elements were added. In the central part, they still left a frieze with a historical sign - as a sign of memory of the Soviet past. At the same time, the supermarket included its own bakery and confectionery.

Nevsky was built according to the design of Frunzensky, the first supermarket in the USSR

Leningrad was the birthplace of Soviet self-service stores. The first one opened back in 1954. In a small store on Przhevalskogo, 10, Soviet customers could for the first time approach the food shelves themselves. Later , other places similar in format appeared , and in 1970, Frunzensky opened in Kupchin - the first supermarket in the USSR.

It became standard for other supermarkets in the country - they even brought delegations from different cities to the store to learn from their experience. The supermarket could serve up to fifteen thousand people a day, the lines were noticeably shorter, and one cashier replaced three salespeople.

In 1980, there were already 370 supermarkets in the USSR, and by 1991 there were two thousand. In Leningrad they began to be built especially actively - in every new residential area.

After the collapse of the USSR, not all stores of this type were able to survive: some were repurposed as shopping or business centers, others were absorbed into chain stores - “Grazhdansky” on Prosveshcheniya Avenue, 8 , for example, became “Perekrestok”. According to experts, there will be about ten “old school” Soviet supermarkets in St. Petersburg by 2024.

Nevsky is one of them. He calmly survived the collapse of the USSR. The store was updated while maintaining Soviet aesthetics and a unique atmosphere.

After privatization, in 1993, the store became the property of the open joint-stock company “Trading Company “Nevsky””. In 2026, 89% of the companies belonged to CEO Igor Loginov - he has been working in the management of Nevsky since at least the early 2000s.

Regular customers have been visiting the department store for decades, and many employees have worked there for just as long.

The bakery of the supermarket was expanded in 2011, starting to accept individual orders for desserts - wedding cakes, loaves and pastries. The culinary department introduced the “Self-assembled tablecloth” service : the cooks completely set the festive table with various dishes. The Nevsky assortment differed from what neighboring chain stores offered. Here, for example, one could find imported cheeses, sausages and wines.

Visitors to the supermarket told Bumaga that they valued the store primarily for its quality products - farm meat and chicken, Vologda milk, delicious cooking and salads.

“It’s a shame it’s closing. Prices have gone up, but everything else is good. I liked everything here - the cuisine, the cooking, the salads, and the cheeses. I always bought everything here - even all the employees recognize me. Of course, I’ll go to Semishagoff. But it will get worse: it will be cheaper, but the quality will not be the same. “There are no Russians at Semishagoff, but Russians all work here,” a regular customer of the store told Paper.

Many people come to Nevsky for discounted goods. They sell cheap fruits, vegetables, baked goods and baked goods with expiration dates. According to one of the visitors, mostly either wealthy people or pensioners come to the supermarket in search of discounted goods.

“Everything is sold here - bones and leftover meat. Some people take it for dogs, and there are also poor grandmothers who make broth from it. Grannies walk around and look to see if there are any discounts,” the client shared.

For many customers, Nevsky has become a favorite store. Some families have been going there for decades. One customer said that she has been coming to the supermarket every day since its opening - all the employees recognize her, another has been shopping here for the holiday table for 50 years.

“We have lived here for 20 years and went to this store all the time. He was very good, it’s a shame that he’s closing - we loved him, but now we’re crying. It had everything we liked and wanted, and at a good price. Now we will go wherever we need to. It hurts my soul that they just sold the store. “Nevsky will now be missed,” said one of the customers.

But not everyone is sorry about the closure of the supermarket.

“But now there will be a large Semishagoff store , they will carry everything. They say it won’t be as cultural, but the main thing is that food will become cheaper. I don’t need culture - the main thing is that the prices are normal. Maybe the oligarchs are sad, who sweep everything off the shelves without looking, that the supermarkets will be closed, but ordinary people will not,” says a regular customer of the store.

Most of the store's employees have been working at Nevsky since the early 2000s, and some since Soviet times - for example, one of the administrators has worked here for more than 40 years.

As Business Petersburg wrote , after the sale of the store, employees will be fired. Employees of the supermarket told “Paper” that the management did not explain anything to them about the closure and now “no one understands anything.” The managers of Nevsky refused to talk to Bumaga .

The store has been experiencing financial difficulties in recent years.

The majority of regular Nevsky customers interviewed by Bumaga cited high prices as the main problem of the supermarket. According to customers who have been going to the store since Soviet times, goods have become more expensive since privatization; for many, the store has become unaffordable.

Prices here for some products are two to three times higher than in chain stores, visitors note. A head of cabbage, for example, costs 90 rubles, when in other stores it costs about 30 rubles. Buyers note that the cost of even discounted goods here is sometimes higher than for regular products in other places.

Recent years have been difficult for Nevsky: since 2018, management has been laying off employees, and the store has tax debts of 721 thousand rubles. At the end of 2025, revenue fell by 19%. The store became unprofitable.

The management of the supermarket admitted that the decline in the purchasing power of the population, the general state of the economy, and increased competition from other stores, marketplaces and delivery services had an impact.

The decision to voluntarily liquidate the supermarket was made by the meeting of shareholders of Nevsky Trading Company OJSC. This process will take two to three months. Until the end of June, you can buy not only food products, but also property in the store. An old plasma TV, furniture, cleaning supplies and staff uniforms were put up for sale.

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