SAINT PETERSBURG, September 4. Swedish furniture company will open a new store called IKEA Kudrovo in December in the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad Region. According to Peter Nilsson, manager of the store, construction is almost complete and IKEA Kudrovo, with a total area of 31 thousand square metres and a car park with 2,400 spaces, will open on December 12. A restaurant offering Swedish cuisine will open within the store itself and a trade and leisure complex will be built alongside the store, as is traditionally the case with IKEA stores in Russia. In total USD 45 million has been invested in this project.

The store will have 450 employees, all of which are now undergoing the necessary training. Staff and visitors will be transported to IKEA Kudrovo by special minibuses which will run at 15 minute intervals from the Ulitsa Dybenko metro station. In November IKEA will distribute catalogues to 200 thousand households in Saint Petersburg. 131 million copies of this catalogue have been published in total, in 23 different languages. 'By December 2004 IKEA is hoping to open a second store in the Leningrad Region and a third within the next 3-4 years,' Mr Nilsson said.

There are currently 186 IKEA stores in 31 different countries. These were visited by over 286 million people in 2002.

News source: Rosbalt
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