Along the Silk Road IV - Shopping

IV

Shopping

Beta Store, Ramstore, 24 Hour Stores, Osh Bazaar, Dor Doi, Shopping Malls, “Department Store”, construction area of town, Kiosks, the underground, street vendors, Chinese mall, pharmacies

As I travel, it is always interesting to see what people buy and how it is sold to them. Generally, everywhere, the system is the same. At the top are the supermarkets and shopping malls and at the bottom the street vendors. In between the large markets which we would call flea markets, the kiosks and the smaller stores and shops. In a sense, the stage of development of a country can be gauged by the extent to which they have all levels of marketing vehicles. When we first arrived in Kosovo, there were no shopping malls or supermarkets; by the time we left they had both.

Beta Store at night - ready for Christmas
Here in Kyrgyzstan, there are all types of shopping outlets. For groceries, there are several alternatives. Most westerners and many, if not a majority, of the Kyrgyz rely on sophisticated chain stores like the Beta Store and the Ramstore, both from Turkey. There was a Ramstore in Skopie, Macedonia and I understand there is one in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The one in Bishkek is a taxi ride from my apartment and does not seem to be as busy as the Beta Store which I can walk to. Like the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company or the National Tea Company both in the US and both of which became large chain groceries (A& P and National Food Stores) the Beta stores are offshoots of the Beta Tea Company. Nearly everything can be found in the Beta Store except pork products and alcohol. As a Turkish store they adhere to the principles of Islam – no pork and no alcohol. Ramstore does have alcohol as does the 24 store. As you might expect, the 24 Hour Stores are structured like convenience stores and are located in several convenient areas of Bishkek. I find them to be closer to grocery stores than convenience stores however.

Western, or American type of groceries can be found in these stores and Beta Store makes a particular effort to stock them. Things like peanut butter and microwave popcorn are found in the Beta Store. Anything of this nature is extremely expensive by our standards. For example, a large box of Shop Rite quick oats for oatmeal cost the equivalent of six dollars. A box containing three bags of microwave popcorn, three dollars, spaghetti sauce around four dollars, and so on.
The chain stores have meat and vegetables. I find that vegetables and fruits are best bought on street markets like the one near my apartment or places like the Osh Bazaar. For meat I rely on the refrigeration, fast turn-over, and sanitary standards apparent at the Beta Store. I am sure that other outlets are equally as good, and perhaps cheaper, but I am not familiar enough to take those chances.


Entrance to Osh Bazaar
Fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, are more easily gauged as to quality and freshness. The best place is the Osh Bazaar. The Osh Bazaar is a large open air market with everything imaginable for sale. The fruit and vegetable area is filled with many vendors all ready to sell you their wares. The price is usually less than the Beta Store or the local market, but the expectation from the vendors is that you will buy more. If I only need a small amount I will go elsewhere.

The Osh Bazaar is an experience worth seeing for that fact alone. There are throngs of people and vendors of everything. At the approach to the main entrance to the Bazaar there are those who must rely on the generosity of others to survive. Elderly women sit, some with wares of questionable utility and small round baskets for money. A young mother sits on the ice with a small child, men young and old sit in wheel chairs, some deformed, others missing limbs, all hoping that shoppers will be compassionate. A blind man plays an accordion under the watchful eye of a woman, perhaps his wife; another blind man plays a komuz, the traditional three string instrument of the Kyrgyz people, a child guides him along leading him through the crowd. A woman stands in the middle of the midway selling plastic zippered carrying bags of varying sizes. Men push carts through the crowded lanes and aisles, yelling in Russian or perhaps Kyrgyz, that they are coming through. Vendors hawk, music blares from cd shops, people scurry along making paths where there are none, their best manners having been left at home. It is a busy place full of life and energy. The apparent confusion and chaos becomes more orderly with each visit.

Busy Osh Bazaar Lane
I buy cheese and butter from the dairy section of the bazaar. I would buy eggs if I had something other than a plastic bag to carry them in. For milk I rely on the Beta Store. The women will offer a taste of cheese or butter before you buy. The nut and dried fruit venders do the same, as do vendors of apples and some of the other fruits.
In other areas of the bazaar you can wind through narrow aisles and buy anything from pots and pans, to screws to clothes to electronic equipment. Some bargaining may be done, or sometimes discounts are just offered. Most importantly, the term caveat emptor applies.
Accordion player
If the flea market concept is what is sought, where bargains may be had and bargaining can be done, then Dor Doi is the place to go. The largest market in Central Asia and perhaps the world, it sprawls across acres of land to the north of Bishkek. The number four electric bus has its last stop and turn around near the entrance to Dor Doi. The bus, or trolley bus, runs on tires and is steered by a driver and is powered by an overhead wire connected to the bus by a trolley pole. The cost is five som, or a little over one dollar, each way.


Man plays the komuz guided by a young girl
The last trolley bus stop on that line is outside a vegetable market that must be traversed to get to the road that leads to the Dor Doi market. Once through the vegetable market the main part of Dor Doi is still about three blocks away but the entire distance consists of flea market type of shops. Like all the preceding shops, Dor Doi is a series of shipping containers or conex boxes. They are stacked in rows with an aisle between the rows. They are two-high, the lower box being the actual shop and the upper box for storage. There are thousands of these boxes stacked and open on the ends providing nearly unlimited shopping. The aisles have metal roofs over them so that the entire maze of containerized shopping is inside and out of the weather.

Woman selling nuts and dried fruit
Like Osh Bazaar, the Dor Doi market is divided by type of merchandise. All the clothing is in the same series of rows, the dishes and kitchen ware is in another one or two rows, and so forth. Most of the merchandise is made in China, but some purveyors boast Turkish made goods. The crowds on a weekend are nearly unbearable and vehicular traffic a tangle of near motionless cars, taxis and mini busses. The prices, however, are much more reasonable than in the shopping centers of Bishkek.

Shopping centers are of the urban type in that they are multistory buildings downtown. They are not the sprawling malls with acres of parking like we have in suburban and rural US. There are several in Bishkek, all about four stories, all containing higher quality merchandise. As anywhere, most stores are clothing stores. Designer clothiers do not have stores here, but the clothing in the shopping center stores is of that caliber. I do not shop there often. Clothes here, like many places around the world, are more expensive than in the US. Places like Bangladesh and China have very inexpensive clothes, but that is where clothes are made now.

Red Dot Centre Shopping Mall
People here, like everywhere, are conscientious about their dress. Women in particular make an effort to maintain a stylish appearance. I have noted that women in developing countries have a propensity to keep abreast of the latest fashion. Among the college age women, patent leather calf and knee length boots are commonplace with slacks or Capri pants that reveal their shapely forms. Working women are equally attentive to style and usually are dressed in a way that presents them professionally while emphasizing their best attributes. This requires that they visit the shops in the high end malls. Interestingly, they do not collect clothes to the degree women in the US do, a sign of the differences in economies, but they do spend money to insure that they always look their best, even if they must wear the same outfit several times during the week. The men are not to be ignored. The men in my office, for example, are very much attuned to fashion when dressed for a meeting. They often dress more casually for work in the office. Winter brings out very fine coats with fur hats or felt ivy hats, and the occasional traditional Kyrgyz tall white felt hat.

People here do not make as much money as most people in the US, and as a result they have different spending habits. While we tend to buy lots of things, people here buy a few things but always, where possible, buy quality. They are well aware that the quality of the Chinese merchandise sold at the Osh Bazaar and Dor Doi is less than what is available in the better stores (likely also made in China) but they will try to buy the better quality if they can; and they will get maximum use from the item.

Zum (Name on top corner)
There are other options for shopping. There is a “department store” for example. It is called Zum. Zum is located in the main business area of Bishkek and is in a five story building. Each floor is a separate department – sort of. The main floor for example, is primarily mobile phones. The floor is covered with cubicles of independent mobile phone vendors. And so it is on the upper floors. Each department consists of numerous independent vendors who rent cubicles to sell their products. I once bought a blender there. I visited half dozen or more vendors of small appliances, comparing the price of the same make and brand of blender to find the best deal. The vendors closest to the escalators tend to have the highest prices while the vendors toward the far walls tend to have better prices. This isn’t always true, and each of the shops will offer a small discount.

Riding escalator to main floor of Zum

Another interesting anomaly of Zum is the woman who sits at the top of the escalators on each of the floors. The up and down escalators are side by side in Zum and in between the two automatic stairs sits a woman watching … something, but I am not sure what. I am equally uncertain whether this is a carryover from Soviet days or if there is some legitimate function for these four or five women stationed strategically throughout the store.

Zum is a busy place nearly every day because of the variety of merchandise available in one location. There is no hardware or construction department, however. For these materials, there is a section of Bishkek where all the vendors of construction materials purvey their wares. This area is situated between two of the busier streets in Bishkek. The anticipated result is an inordinate accumulation of trucks, vans and cars in one area during the busiest part of the day. It generally does not bother us except when we go to Bishkek City Court or the Court Department which are located in a building very near. Although I have no need for these materials, interest caused me to wander through the maze of vendors with Ermek one day. Hardware stores have always provided a fascination for me. Seeing barrels of nails and boxes of screws and bolts, and tools for various purposes, and wooden doors, and windows, and tile, provides a bit of tranquility in an otherwise hectic existence. It is not Home Depot or Lowe’s but in a lot of ways it is better. The individual shopkeeper has not left the developing world.


Kiosks
Even where there are not large buildings housing the small vendors, entrepreneurs have found ways to survive. In Bishkek, as was the case in Kosovo and so many other developing countries, kiosks line many of the sidewalks and streets of the city. In Kosovo, in an effort to show that laws were being enforced, the city of Pristina removed all the kiosks from the streets. The illegally built apartment and office buildings still stood, but the kiosks were removed.

Bishkek has not taken this Draconian action. Kiosks are alive and well. They sell chewing gum, newspapers, candy, cigarettes, matches (one som per box), nail clippers, key chains, pens and pencils, lighters and any number of other odds and ends. There are also many that serve as convenience stores selling fruits vegetables, milk, water, liquor, bread and many other grocery items.


Entrance to the underground. (Note sign)
One kiosk near my home opened recently and is large enough to hold several customers at once. I have been in the store when there have been as many as five or six people with room to spare. Most kiosks are much smaller and many do not allow customers inside, they only sell from a window. My new little neighborhood store has been so successful with its variety and good prices that another smaller kiosk fifty meters up the street has closed and been removed. Removal of most of these small metal buildings is a matter of loading it onto a truck and carrying it to a new location.


Shops selling Valentines in the underground
One of the more interesting places for retail shops is what I call the underground. The Soviets – in this case the Russians – are fond of tunnels through buildings into courtyards and of underground pedestrian crossings for busy streets. These are underground tunnels that allow pedestrians to cross streets safely and even allow pedestrians to cross to diagonal corners. They are interesting and functional. Steps at each corner take pedestrians to one or more tunnels that cross under the intersections. These tunnels are lined with small shops about two meters deep and three meters wide. They sell everything from cards to paper products, hair care products, copies, computer time, toys, nearly any type of item that we would have been found in the old “five and dime” stores can be found in the underground shops. There is one underground I cross frequently. It has a key maker on the steps leading down. Women also frequently beg on the steps. Usually the man with the deformed arms sits on the floor with his back to one of the pillars drawing pencil portraits with his bare feet. His money basket is in front of him and pictures lie on the concrete floor around him. One foot holds his paper and one draws. The pictures are very well done.

Street vendors in front of 24 hour store (yes cow hooves)
I usually exit on the stairs to the 24 hour store. At that juncture, there are numerous street vendors. These are mostly women sitting with various types of fruits and vegetables arranged around them. Once emptied and inverted, the crates and boxes used to transport the items to the location become the tables for display and a seat on which to rest through the long day. Street vendors are the bottom rung on the merchandising ladder. They are in various locations and sell many different items. The woman on my walk to work meticulously arranges her umbrella over her small folding table holding gum and candy. She is at the corner were one of the many universities is located. When the weather is bad she will add an additional plastic sheet on top of her umbrella.

Not far from my apartment there is market where there are numerous street vendors, some with fairly permanent tables. These vendors sell primarily fruit and vegetables. I have come to know one of the vendors who always makes sure I get the best of his produce. He speaks no English, but his sons speak a little. There are women selling apples and berries, in season. A man sells apples from the open trunk of an old Lada. One woman sits on a small stool on the sidewalk selling honey from an even smaller table in front of her. A kiosk sells bread. Another mostly drinks.

In every country I have been, there are certain places that are unique to that particular locality. In Bishkek everyone seems to know the Chinese mall. It is a mall containing three floors, not very large, but unique in the fact that all the vendors are Chinese. It is around the corner from one of the seedy hotel casinos in the city and not too far from my apartment. The basement floor is dedicated to furniture; the upper floor clothes. The main floor is where I normally spend time and money. There is a Chinese grocery that has every kind of Chinese ingredient necessary for any Chinese dish. It is the only place in Bishkek where I have been able to find celery. They have an assortment of teas, the extent and quality of which cannot be found elsewhere. Next to the Chinese grocery is a restaurant supply store where kitchen utensils of all description are sold. Dor Doi has an entire lane of dishes and kitchen supplies, but without going through that ordeal, this Chinese mall has an excellent variety closer to home, and without the hassle.

I have already discussed pharmacies, but no discussion of shopping can be complete without a discussion of pharmacies. The pharmacies here are like the ones we used in Kosovo. These are well supplied shops where prescriptions are to give instruction to the pharmacist, not to allow them to sell the drugs. If you know what you need, simply ask. If they stock it you can buy it. I can purchase my blood pressure medicine for a fraction of the cost in the US. If I buy Russian made pills instead of European made tablets, the cost is dramatically cheaper. There are a few large pharmacies, but most are very small shops with glass partitions allowing a vast display of the many medicines and medical related products. Somewhere in the glass, always easily found, is a window where orders are given to the pharmacist. As with nearly all the small entrepreneurial businesses, these pharmaceutical shops are large enough for half dozen people at a time, no more. As an English speaker who not only does not know Russian, but also can make out very little of the Cyrillic alphabet, I am forced to write the generic name of a drug on a slip of paper and pass it through the window to the pharmacist. She (usually a woman) then decides if she has that particular product. Usually they have any drug we commonly use in the US, only much cheaper. To insure I have the correct medicine, I take what I have purchased to the office and have Jyldyz tell me what it says on the box. I have learned to read the Cyrillic Russian name of a couple of the drugs I need.

Shopping is an adventure here. Sometimes it is no different than shopping in the US, but at other times, it is a total departure from our experiences. Particularly challenging for me is dealing in a language I do not understand with people who do not understand my language. I point, use gestures and pantomime. It is like playing a parlor game. There are times when I am told the price which I do not understand and the person does not have a calculator to display the amount for me, I simply hold out my folded bills and hand them to the vendor. They have thus far been totally honest and taken only what they deserve. I am very seldom frustrated by this. It is somewhat of a cultural artifact; watching both how the people with whom I am dealing react, as well as how I deal with the situation. People of all cultures are generally honest, good hearted and hard working. They want the same things we do; a good life where they can feed their families, a warm dwelling, a picnic by a stream, a hike in the mountains, or simply a day of rest. I wonder why we fight each other and cast aspersions and hate; I really do wonder….

Until the Next Connection,
Dan