The Market

We spent this morning exploring the area around our apartment. We are staying in a residential area of tall buildings that each contain anywhere from 25-75 small apartments. There are no single-family homes around us and we have seen very few during our travels around town. There is a small supermarket nearby and we have been making daily trips to it to stock up on basics as well as a few experimental items (meaning we don’t know exactly what we are buying, but we are feeling adventurous at the time).

Today we discovered an outdoor market just down the road from us. You see these everywhere around town as they seem to pop up about every other block. It seems that the majority of people here in Kiev purchase almost everything at these outdoor markets as opposed to regular stores (not a single Super Wal-Mart in sight!). We saw stalls containing a little bit of everything as well as “specialty stalls” that offered only plumbing supplies or sweaters or DVDs.

Some of the stalls contain actual tables on which a large number of items are displayed for sale and these are usually manned by young entrepreneurs. But the majority are just tablecloths set on the ground with a few vegetables or fruits offered by elderly women. It is heartbreaking to see these women sit on the ground or perhaps a small stool from morning until late at night hoping to sell their meager wares. We bought fresh raspberries from one lady who looked exactly like Stacie’s Great-Grandmother Mona. (Perhaps this is where Megan gets her Eastern-European looks!) Later, we noticed another babushka (grandmother) who had only a small bag of peanuts to sell. Trace purchased some peanuts from her not because any of us really wanted them, but because he saw the tears in Stacie’s eyes and knew what he had to do.

The biggest impression made on us by our trip to the market was that everybody here works. You see very few people begging for money (less than in the U.S.) and everywhere you look you see the young and the old, the healthy and the infirm striving to make a living. Many able-bodied Americans who expect the government to meet their every need could learn a thing or two from the people of Ukraine – but please don’t get Trace started on that subject!!