At the Market

Last Sunday I went shopping--which always seems to be an adventure here. I was trying to act as the tourguide this time, however, as 3 Austrian girls had just arrived in Yakutsk and didn't know their way around. Of course, despite having spent a considerable amount of time in the city, I managed to put us on 3 wrong buses before we got on the right one and found our way to the market we wanted to go to, that is "krestyanskii rynok" or "peasant market". I wanted to go here in particular because it's one of the larger markets and has a wide variety of both food and other products. Half of the market is outside, while half of it is in a large 2-story building. The cheaper products are, naturally, all outside, while the more expensive things are inside.

Sunday, of course, happened to be one of the coldest days yet since I've been here--well below -40 degrees, a fact discernable by the thickness of the fog the enshrouds the city. Below -35 or so there is a thin fog and it gets thicker the colder it gets. So, Sunday we could hardly see 5 feet in front of us, meaning that it was likely around -47,-48, which partly accounted for my inability to actually get us to the market. Despite the cold temperatures, all the outdoor merchants had their little shops set up. No one, however, was there shopping. Perhaps out of boredom or perhaps to keep themselves active, they all decided to harass the foriegners--as we obviously were. So, before we even got to the indoor 2-story building, we had to pass through the gauntlet of outdoor merchants standing in front of piles of frozen rabbits, squirrels, fish and moose meat. They had no problem grabbing our arms to lead us to their stands. Initially, the interest was in getting us to buy products from them, but soon they stopped caring about that altogether and poured an onslaught of questions--where are you from? why are you here? what do you think of yakutia? aren't you cold? how old are you? what is your name? I have a cousin in America! Do you know Brittany Spears? And one man, who was very proud of his limited English speaking ability, decided to demostrate with repeated declarations of "I love you baby," accompanied by attempts to hug and kiss me. It gets to feeling a little like being an animal in a zoo sometimes.

Having frozen ourselves fending off the outdoor vendors, we made our way inside the two story, brick building. On the first floor is where they sell fruits and vegetables (during the summer this is all outside as well, but understandably can't be in the winter). These are all in one large room. There are about 4 or five kiosks there, selling potatoes, onions, carrots, cabbages and even oranges, grapes, apples, tomatoes and bananas. The latter group are extremely expensive, however, (grapes were $6 a kilogram) and not the best quality. So I find it best to stick with the root veggies. All of the vendors sell precisely the same products for precisely the same prices--I can't for the life of me decide how people decide who to buy from because I simply don't see a difference in quality, price, or selection. I choose randomly typically.

Passing through the fruit and veggie room, you get to a corrider that winds around a large staircase. The corrider is lined with various shops selling assorted products like toiletries or movies or simply socks or handbags. On the second floor of the market is a much larger room where meat and dairy products are. Again individual vendors sell much the same products, lined up one after another in front of little refrigerators showing their butter, cheese, ground beef, large chunks of beef, horse, etc. and even intenstines, tounges and heads of various animals. They call out as you walk past "what are you looking for?" "here, take some cow toungue--the highest quality! I'll give you a discount, special for our visitors (priezhie)."

Also on this floor are small stores similar to those that are everywhere in the city that sell a wide range of groceries. Like in other stores as well, all the products are displayed behind the counter and you have to ask the cashier to grab things for you. However, shopping in the market is generally much more pleasant than elsewhere as you can wander around and look at what all the different vendors are selling and think about what it is that you want to buy. Some will even barter with you a bit if you push them to--"those are so expensive, you can't give me a discount?" Although, bartering culture is not super highly developed here as in other places I've been--the posted price is generally a fair price, so that you're not expected to haggle and if business is good, the vendors won't go any lower. I often give it a try, because things are not cheap here--I think because of the cost of importing things, oftentimes some products are even more expensive than they would be in the US.