The night-time opening ceremony of MediaMarkt, the German consumer electronics chain store, failed in Alatyr Shopping Center in Yekaterinburg. Despite all the claims made by the opening coordinators, the store never started working at 12 AM on December 10, 2009. The official reason for this failure is declared to be ‘technological problems’.

At any rate, this is exactly what the shopping center managers and security staff said. They had to communicate with the potential customers, who had arrived at the mall at midnight. A lot of them were lured in by MediaMarkt adverts that promised impressive discounts to the first shoppers. All in all, several hundred people had gathered around the mall by 12 AM. Even though it was quite late, several traffic jams could be notices in Malyshev St., Lenin St., and Moskovskaya St.

To make sure the disappointed Yekaterinburg dwellers behave themselves, a few scores of militiamen headed for the mall to maintain order. Several buses full of law-enforcement officers were parked next to the shopping center. Using the public address system, the officers asked the people to leave the mall and go home.

It is not quite clear yet what the exact reasons for the failed opening were. However, UrBC was able to find out that the shopping mall’s management might have failed to get the necessary permit from the surveillance authorities. The permit could have been refused due to numerous unfinished bits of work in Alatyr itself, as the finishing of the building is far from being complete.