Gostinyi Dvor

in Russia, a place in cities where merchants stored their goods and carried on trade.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the gostinyi dvor was usually a rectangular square, encircled by a stone or wooden wall with towers and entrance gates. Inside the walls were accommodations for trade and storage, usually having two stories and joined by open galleries, for example, the gostinyi dvor in Arkhangel’sk. In the 18th century, the gostinye dvory lost their fortress character. The gostinye dvory, which typically preserved the form of a closed rectangular square, began to be built with arcades or colonnades open to the streets. In several Russian cities, trading complexes in the buildings of former Gostinye dvory have preserved their traditional name (for example, the Gostinyi Dvor department store in Leningrad).