UK Hamleys toy shop to open in Moscow

The U.K. toystore Hamleys, one of the world's largest shops, will be opening an outlet in Moscow, the Vedomosti business daily newspaper reported on Wednesday. The first store under the Hamleys brand name in Russia will be opened in late March in the Evropeisky shopping center and will be about 1,700 square meters. The license for the brand use in Russia was given to the Ideas4retail firm, owned by businessmen Alexander Mamut, co-owner of Russia's largest mobile phone retailer Evroset, and Yevgeni Butman, former co-owner of the re:Store Retail Group. According to Russia's National Toy Association, the Russian toy market grew 17 percent in 2011 to nearly $3.3 billion when compared with 2010. Hamleys is named after William Hamley, who founded a toy shop called "Noah's Ark" in London in 1760. Other major stores worldwide include Dublin, Dubai, Amman, Glasgow, Mumbai, Chennai and Riyadh.