A GROWING BUSINESS

When Schiller came to the United States in 1973, his background writing films about fine arts and his wife Victoria’s experience as a high school German teacher were of little use.

“I think they don’t need scriptwriter who doesn’t speak English,” he says with a chuckle.

With Gross supplementing her father’s English, Schiller sits in his Newtonville home and describes the evolution of the business from a one-room operation in downtown Boston to a successful local chain of stores.

With $1,750 from the Jewish Family and Children’s Services, Schiller started the first Little Russia store in 1974 on the fifth floor of a jewelry building on Washington Street, where he shared a room with his brother’s clock-making business.

He became a well-known figure in the local Soviet community thanks to his role in helping newly-arrived families get established in America.

According to Schiller, the Soviet government only allowed emigrants to take the equivalent of $500 with them when they left the country. So the families would use their savings to purchase crafts for Schiller, who sold them in his store and held onto the money to give to the families when they arrived.

“The year before going to emigration, they begin to mail me parcels,” he says. “When they come here they have in the bank some cash. Sometimes good cash.”

Because he was afraid of Soviet government monitoring, Schiller didn’t explicitly request items. Instead, he says, he dropped hints about what he might want for his store.

“I write…‘I like matryoshka dolls. I like some shirts, embroidered shirts. And some shawls.’ And they understand what to bring,” he says.

Little Russia came to Harvard Square in the mid-1970s, when Schiller rented a storefront in the Garage so small that he had to put his items on a pushcart and roll it into the hall to sell. In 1978 the store jumped to its current building on Mt. Auburn Street.

As the business became more successful, Schiller opened a store in Brookline in the mid-1980s, later closing that branch to open another store on Newbury Street, in downtown Boston.

“During the life of the store it’s changed three or four or five times,” Schiller says.

The store expanded to sell semiprecious jewelry, and Schiller began selling jewelry that his friends made, using his wife’s designs. He later sold beads and offered classes in the Brookline store to teach customers how to make their own necklaces, and added a new line of jewelry from Africa, Asia, Greece and other far-flung locales.

In November 1992 a fire destroyed the Mt. Auburn Street building and all the merchandise in it, eventually prompting Schiller to close the second store in Boston and move all the inventory to his rebuilt Cambridge store.