Gorbushka, Electronics marketplace in Filyovsky Park District, Russia
Gorbushka is an electronics market in Filyovsky Park District with multiple floors filled with stores. The selling space houses computers, smartphones, gaming consoles, and various equipment packed closely together.
In autumn 1987 Igor Tonkikh founded a record collectors' club at the Gorbunov Palace of Culture, where vendors traded vinyl, reels and cassettes at weekends. In the 1990s the stalls moved into Filyovsky Park and added game consoles, video cassettes and, from 1992–1993, compact discs. A 2001 ban on open-air sales of audio and video closed the market; traders moved to the former Rubin factory building as Gorbushkin dvor.
The name comes from the Russian word for the first slice of a loaf, whose hump-like shape recalls the market's origins by the Gorbunov Palace of Culture. In the 1990s the market issued its own music chart, rivalling FM radio playlists, and vendors sold pirated films translated by figures such as Pavel Sanayev.
The market sits in the building of the former Rubin plant on Bagrationovsky Proyezd, next to the Bagrationovskaya metro station. The trading rows are indoors, so the stalls operate regardless of the weather. The building has several entrances and a multi-level layout; a plan at the entrance helps with orientation.
In 1997 Gorbushka entered the Guinness Book of Records for "fastest piracy": four hours after Bill Gates announced Microsoft Office 97, counterfeit copies were on sale there at a tenth of the original price. The market also had its own music chart, as popular as FM radio ones.
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