to market, to market...

May 31, 2011, Tuesday

Odessa, Ukraine

To Market, to Market…

Sometimes you will find the most interesting things just by looking down.  This was certainly true for us today.  Looking out of our seventh story hotel room at the Black Sea Hotel, we overlook the largest public market we have ever encountered.   We planned to spend our day checking out this wonderful piece of Odessa.

Many tourists prefer to spend their days shopping at upscale boutiques, touring a variety of museums, drooling over homes of celebrities or lazing by the poolside ordering umbrella drinks and working on their suntans. Our travel days do not fit into any of those categories.  Some of our favorite activities involve walking through residential communities and stopping at public markets and fairs. 

Odessa’s Privoz Market it quite famous for its size and variety of items and reminds us of pictures we have seen of the Lower East Side of New York a century ago.  Measuring an estimated half mile square and an amalgam of 1000 or more vendors, it is lively, fascinating, inexpensive, colorful, busy, loud and absolutely marvelous.   And best of all it is definitely NOT a tourist market.  You have to look hard to find any souvenir tee-shirts. Stands are small and large, covered and uncovered.  Speaking a babble of Russian and Ukrainian, many sell their items from blankets while sitting on the ground.  Young people and ancient Ukrainian babushkas all have something to sell, sometimes if only a few toothbrushes.

Everyday residents of the city hop off overcrowded rickety streetcars to do their shopping here.  You can find fish, fresh, smoked, salted or live!  Handmade brooms, reminiscent of the 18^th century, are also offered.  Bins and tables of produce include fantastically fresh and dried fruit, vegetables, seeds, flowers, spices and herbs.  Manufactured items from all over the world, thousands of shoes, toys, clothing, CDs abound.  Some stands just sold bottles, cans and kegs of beer which was cheaper than bottled water or soda pop.

Privoz Market is the real thing. Unlike bazaars of the Middle East of the mercados of Latin America, there is no pressure here. The salespeople are not trying to hustle you as this is the substitute for large supermarkets that we are used to shopping in our country.

We had not plans to buy anything, but couldn’t resist a few bargains and items of interest.  We purchased nail polish (about 75 cents), four wonderful fresh homemade kosher pickles (37 cents) and a CD of Russian/Ukrainian folk music (99 tunes, $3, © doubtful).  We also stopped at a bakery where we selected some rolls for about a dollar.  We don’t speak Russian and shop owners didn’t speak English, but we managed to communicate through our guessing and pointing and phrase book!

This unbelievable market experience seems to begin each morning at dawn and then the merchants begin to pack up their thousands of items when the sun sets. From about 6-10 pm, 50+ trucks and vans arrived on the scene and began to unload crates with 100 kilo sacks of potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes and other farm products. They placed these items on their dollies and appeared to be bringing these items to the small produce stands in order to supply them for tomorrow’s market opening, as the daily cycle of feeding the hungry citizens of Odessa continues in much the same way it has been done for probably more than a century.