For the first time in my life we took a Mashrutka (those overcrowded mini vans serving as public transport). I heard a lot about burglaries in Mashrutkas, so I was a bit nervous as I had my camera with me. But we were lucky, as we left our neighborhood around 9 in the morning it wasn't that crowded yet. The ride in a Mahrutka costs between 8 and 15 som (20-30 Cent). Passengers stop the van by waving on the side of the street. The vans have a sign in the window saying a number and which destination it is heading to. Than the passengers get on, sit down or usually stand and hand their money to the driver. When you're sitting in the back, you ask the other passengers to pass it on to the front. I was fascinated by how the driver was making sure to really get everyones money - while driving - and also handing back the change - while driving. If you want to get off you just let the driver now and he'll stop anywhere on his route, not only at official bus stops.
After a 20 minute ride (or even less, I don't remember), we reached the bazar. It was already hot by then. But it still wasn't that crowded. The bazar is huge! Our Kyrgyz friend estimated that the space of the entire bazar must be something like 1 square kilometre. It basically looks like a huge hall with a roof top, hundreds of isles, and thousands of little booths and stands inside. They sell anything there: starting from underwear, clothes, shoes, bags, wedding dresses, suits, any type of household supplies, baby supplies, juwelry, sunglasses, carpets to food and fruit. We only walked part of the clothes section. When I went to my first bazar here last year I was so overwhelmed, I didn't know where to look - and neither was I able to buy anything. This time I adapted more quickly. Most of the clothes are being imported from Turkey or China. I wasn't looking for something specific, but I ended up buying a t-shirt type of dress, some leggings and a hair brush. It started to be fun!
I also noticed that in the underwear booths, they often sold panties with fake butts. I have never seen them in Europe, only had heard about them in women's magazines. It's funny, because I had trouble finding clothes that fit me, because I'm too "big" for Asian standards and my butt is the major problem area (ok, let's face it, not only for Asian standards...). And the flat "butted" Asian girls that I admire for their nice skinny figures obviously like to cheat sometimes. So the worrying about one's butt must be a global phenomenon!
When walking in the isles there are always people with carriages rushing from the back or the front. They are like couriers for the goods being brought in and out. They would just yell for you to get out of their way. They are very busy and, of course, time is money so they don't like to speed down. There are also many men with smaller carriages selling cold beverages and mostly women with old strollers being (mis)used for selling bananas, coffee, tea, juices or little snacks. One blind old woman walked through the isles singing old Kyrgyz songs. Her singing was beautiful so I gave her some money. For a real time impression of Dordoi Bazar check out this short video clip I found on YouTube. Maybe there are more, I couldn't check.
But I realized that shopping and taking pictures at the same time doesn't work. So I focused on shopping after a while. Therefore I'm disappointed I didn't get that many good pictures. Plus I had the impression, that the people around felt uncomfortable when I took pictures, so I didn't want to be in their faces. One woman even banned to photograph her display dummy, which surprised me. But I'll definitely go back one day to just take pictures and not shop, and then have time to make people more comfortable. I really got dizzy after a while, because many of the booths almost look identical and I kept having deja-vues. It also got packed after a while and the air got kinda bad, so after about 1.5 hrs we decided to leave. The boys were relieved! I have to say they were very patient with me and helped me to get good deals. Before I go next time I need to study some Bazar vocabulary, because I was quite lost today.
This really was an adventure for me and I loved it, although Kyrgyz people will think I'm crazy for saying that. Most locals I asked about it, don't like going there, because it is too crowded - especially on Sundays. ;)
Posts
4 comments:
great post! we are so excited about visiting the bazaars... maybe it will only take one visit to get it out of our system... but we are really looking forward to it.
maybe you can be our tour guide?!
david
how i would have loved to listen to the old woman singing!
is there a lot of music in the streets of bishkek?
cheers,
stefan
There is a lot of music in Bishkek. However probably not the type you imagine. People are listening to pop songs on ther mobile phone loudspeakers. It's something that either is part of the youth culture in Germany and I haven't noticed yet or it's just not common at all. Maybe it's also because mp3-players and ipods are widespread by now and there's no need to use loudspeakers. On the other hand people gather outside a lot more here, which makes sharing music via loudspeakers quite useful, compared to using headphones. Last night we got home by midnight walking through the neighborhood and again I noticed 2 young women standing in front of one of the buildings, each a baby on their arms and listening to loud music. And nobody complains about it! In Germany their would be complaints within 1 minute, don't you think so?
for sure there would be complaints in germany ;)
btw: here in kreuzberg it is also very common to meet students on the streets, listening to music on their mobile with loudspeakers. mostly turkish or arab, though.
keep on swingin',
stefan
Post a Comment