Moscow (October 1995/Oktober 2006). The snow mud reached to his ankles. A huge crowd was tormented with heavy shopping bags through the maze of tin-containers and old truck that sold their goods any loading areas. "Wholesale market" called themselves the apocalyptic trading places on the outskirts of Moscow, but here bought a not wholesalers, but the common people.
was on these wild markets, it all: stiff frozen fish from the Pacific, yogurts German, Swedish strawberry cereal, toilet paper, dog food and summer clothes. At that time, in the unimaginably long past 1995, we were often on the "wholesale market" at the Metro station "Yugo-Zapadnaya."
Once, when the weather was particularly nasty and we blew the sleet in their faces, "said Tillman, who had come for a semester abroad to Moscow:" Wait it only from: In ten years, here is a supermarket blankgeputzem with soil and only thing that interferes with shopping, is the music that blares from the ceiling. "I said nothing, but I told my friend secretly crazy. However, his prognosis was completely correct. was
supermarkets for the people
1995 in all of Moscow with its ten million people only a handful of supermarkets. The prizes were awarded in U.S. dollars and so high that no one shopped there. Later the first branch of the Turkish Ramstore chain - a supermarket for ordinary Muscovites. That was the end of the nineties, a small sensation. Today, the huge shopping centers are almost at every street corner.
But our district at the Metro Woikowskaja remained until the end supermarket-free. There were only a few small food shops for everyday things. Quite a lot of goods so we bought at the subway. Directly to the outputs of all the rows of wooden stalls, tents and kiosks were set up, where it mainly fruit and vegetables were bought.
The sellers were probably all of them illegal immigrants from the former Soviet republics. People there, often seven days a week toiled from morning to nine clock in the evening, with no rights and for a miserable salary. The young Uzbek, the round in a kiosk next to our house in the High Street Radiator the Clock cigarettes, beer and potato chips in stock, had appeared in the converted construction trailer with no wheels to sleep also the same.
weighed Wrong, wrong
counted for exploiters Moscow had this system a tremendous advantage. They could buy goods at any time, day or night a few steps from the house door whatever you need. However, it also had a huge disadvantage. In the markets fraud as part of everyday life at the crowd in the metro. Incorrectly weighed apples, rotten change incorrectly counted, peppers - over the years came together quite a considerable sum.
After some very annoying experience I was ready for me down my own purchasing system. Because I wanted to hit me no more anonymous traders over the ear, which changed to more permanent, I decided to buy only at certain levels. Fruit and vegetables, I followed some tests only when Mary Lemberg at the rear exit of the metro. And it worked. The daily visit to the fruit stand was a ritual. Soon there were still regular at kilo bananas kiwi "for the little girl" on top. If four tomato varieties was designed from the stand, I learned with absolute certainty what "tastes good at all, unfortunately."
We could ever buy such a way but then one day, Mary was gone. Disappeared overnight. Was she arrested? Deported to Ukraine? I faced a huge problem: How should I replace our regular vendor? In fact appropriated by no means all items for everyday shopping. After some searching I found eventually replacement. Three booths towards Metro we provided us, from then on Gülya from Azerbaijan with vegetables, apples and tangerines.
The evening shopping is fun again. After several weeks of course Mary came back to their regular place - they had all of their free days saved up for a longer home leave. Now I was faced with a real dilemma. On the way home from the subway, I was forced to pass two levels of my regular vendors. Both have friendly greeted me every time, eventually they got used to my daily purchases. We have very, very much eaten fruit that autumn.
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