Urban redevelopment in the Russian largest cities during last 30 years was driven by universal modernization trends as well as by specific "path-dependent" changes. This study discusses the role of commercial, and specifically retail trade and services redevelopment as the major indicator of recent redevelopment trends in the periphery of Russian cities under effects of different above mentioned factors. Two most specific inner-city post-socialist zones-socialist time industrial and socialist time residential belts were in the