At the bazar

Yesterday, early afternoon I had my debut on the local market for vegetables and fruit. Together with my landlady and colleauge I went there ready to carry loads of stuff on our way back home. It doesn't matter what country you go to, markets are always interesting and gives you a gleam of the life of the locals that bring life to the big cities. In Azerbaijan it gets a little bit harder though because of the language barrier but still you can make an idea by watching people, their ways and approaches. This specific market in Baku was more or less the size of two football fields and nearly as green too, or at least the one that was filled with green pepper, figs, apples, cucumbers, herbs and huge watermelons. Yesterday the price for the latter was 20 gopik à kilo (in euro approximataley 20 cents). I know it's just water but still its cheap and especially if you take into consideration that Azerbaijan is famous for its delicious watermelons that are at their best in august. The health standards at the market might not be like we are used to at home but I can assure that I never been sick by eating anything here (despite that waving away the insisting flies is the only preventive measure when it comes to protecting the naked chickens from the steaming heat of summer). The only time I got sick was when eating chicken at a Turkish restaurant in central Baku why I've learnt that it's more about having a good eye and nose than judging the standars of the place the chicken comes from. The same thing goes for the greens. In Azerbaijan they all have different size (unlike the "plastic surgery" greens within the borders of the European Union) but they taste amazingly. It was a pleasure to come back from Germany and put tomatoes and cucumber on the sandwich. And why not try a bit of that white cheese you buy for less then 2 euros à kilo? For someone that studies international economy it's highly interesting to see how different it can be shopping outside the European Union. However, I want to point out that even if it's a lot more cheaper here that doesn't mean that the prices are stable. They go up and down every day and you never know what the price might be when you wake up. Easy to handle maybe in a country like Sweden but with an average salary of about 160 euros per month the prices at the bazar are a little bit more than just figures.