Saturday 14 January 2012

Market

This afternoon a walk along the streets on a beautiful, sunny winter's day.















A pretty church, just along the street from my apartment:


But it's not all pretty. This dilapidated building is just down the road from the church - and there are many, many others like it. Odessa is a real mix of the very smart and the very run-down.














I was heading for the market, called "Privoz". I think it's the biggest open-air market I've ever seen in my life - thousands of stalls, selling pretty much anything you can think of. These photos give a very poor idea of one small area of the place:






















Just fascinating. I think it deserves a whole photo essay - one day ...

Most gratifying of all, however, was that I managed to buy the things I wanted (kitchen stuff mostly), and understand and be understood by the stall-holders. Mainly just exchanges about what I was looking for, and prices. But I had a pleasant conversation with one friendly stall-holder,  mostly in Russian, with occasional bits of English, who wanted to know what I was doing in Odessa etc. They weren't all friendly like that!

Then a walk back in lovely late afternoon sun:

I took a wrong turning at one point and had a moment of panic ... Omigod I'm lost in a strange city, what if I just get more and more lost ... Ridiculous of course, since I had a map and I could always ask someone for directions. Guess which one I resorted to (being a bloke and all that ...)

2 comments:

  1. You asked a young woman the way?

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    1. Hehehe - smart!
      Given how very good-looking far too many of the young women here are - that's "far too many" for my good, you understand - I should've thought of that. I read the map!

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