Anything you need it's here

You can even buy your underclothes right on the street. Why pay for someone's rent in a store? I waited a long time at this location, but nobody tried one on.

Chrisna buying napkins

Pots and pans

smoked meats, clothing

Egg & Cheese Omelette

Fresh eggs are for sale for about a $1 for ten. For about half a mile you have egg vendors, one after the other. Some have a open egg displayed to show-off the yellow color of the yolk. When buying eggs at the market you want to bring you're own container to carry them in, or you will get ten eggs in a plastic bag.










Cheese is locally made by many different farmers. This is an inside area of the market dedicated solely to dairy products. Again, from one cheese maker to the next there is not much difference in cheese. Mark has been buying locally made sheep's milk cheese called brinza. Also, fresh "house" cheese, it's like a farmers cheese. There are also all kinds of smoked cheeses, and hard cheeses. I like the way the cheese sellers are dressed. There are also about four -five grades of different butter you can buy.

This woman is selling vegetables on the outside of the market. If, you don't get in on time you don't get space in the market to sell your produce. Those people will sell their produce kinda on the street that runs on the side on the outside of the market.

Oil & Vegtables

Here you have some pictures of people selling cooking oil of unknown origin. So, this is one item that Mark and I have been buying at a regular grocery store.

For rows and rows, farmers set up their fresh produce. Currently, radishes, eggplant, corn, apples, mushrooms, leeks, lettuce, cabbage ( I have seen cabbage and cauliflower the size of basket balls), carrots, tomatoes, peppers, and cauliflower are the most common items sold at this time. Vegetables sold depend on the season. There are fruit that seem to be always available like bananas and oranges. More locally pomegranates and persimmons have been for sale.
I wondered what the difference is between sellers, why does one shopper go to a particular farmer to buy their vegetables? I have closely inspected vegetables displayed by different farmers and must say that there is no "material" difference. So, I believe that over time people buy stuff from the person they have build a relationship with or know. Mark and I have not reached that stage yet, we don't have the tomato guy, or the lettuce woman we exclusively buy from. We buy things from pretty much any farmer if it looks good, and I mean the vegetables not the farmer.

Want sockings, plastic bags, or shoe inserts?

Here are some more pictures of woman selling merchandise, while holding everything they are selling in their hands. I bought some stockings with fun patterns on them for about $3 that were just fine. ( I was a little suspicious of course, since there are no sizes lables, and I was wondering if there would be some kind of manufacturing defect)

I seems like Hugo Boss is very well liked in Moldova. Wonder if he knows.

A day at the Piata Centrala

The Piata Centrala is the place buy anything from fresh fish to electronics. There is pretty much nothing you can't get here. The market is open seven days a week all year round. Supposedly Thursdays are the best days to go get produce since farmers come in with fresh vegetables on Thursday. I have not really been able to tell a difference between Thursdays and other days in the week.

Mark took me to the market my first day here and the first time it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. There are always a lot of people, and so on my first day I learned quickly that personal space between people is not something that people are concerned with. I couldn't understand but it seemed like everybody was in such a hurry. I was pushed forward, to one side, bumped into, and brushed up against by other shopper trying to make their way past each other in the small walkways between stands. However, after my first time I learned quickly that saying excuse me (in Moldovan) is not needed, nobody does it, you just need to be filling to push your way through a crowd, and hold your space when you are buying something and ignore those that bump into you.

I think I am no more a novice, I have graduated to a intermediate market shopper. Still, once there I do always have a little period of oh yes, it's the market, and you just got to be willing to push and push back.

This picture is near the entrance. Woman, like the one in the in the middle of this picture, are stationed all over the market selling nylon stockings, shoe inserts, or plastic bags that say Hugo Boss on them. Some of these woman are Roma(Gypsies -they don't like to be called that so people call them Roma) that come to the city to sell merchandise.

Chisinau in Autumn

This is a nice looking city in Autumn. The leaves of the hardwood trees are all changing colors and falling like snow. It's quite nice, as there are a lot of parks around the city, like the one in the picture is a block or two from our apartment.

There is also an outdoor art market just one block from us, and some of the art is nice, although it is mostly just copies of stuff and kitchy stuff. There is one painting I think we might buy. It's on the top left of the photo.

Our living room. the furniture is new, and the landlord bought it just for us. Not sure if you can see, but on the last photo there are these little carpet like things on the chairs. Something typical of a Moldova household.

This is our kitchen. See the blue light? There is a blue light in the kitchen that supposedly is good for killing bacteria. Thank god we also have normal light in the kitchen, it is really hard to get used to the blue light. Window looks out over the street in front of our appartment.

Bedroom

Some pictures of our bedroom. I love the closet and size of the bedroom.

Our Chisinau Home

Arriving at our apartment I thought we were going to be living in a apartment that would definitely take some getting use to. The building from the outside is unpainted, the stair case dark and dusty....this is where Mark got us an apartment? Well, the outside of the building and the stair case were not at all what was behind the steel double bolted door entrance to our apartment. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that what I had used to form my opinion on what our apartment might be like was totally wrong. I found out later that nobody really owns the maintenance of the outside or the staircase of the building. The only thing people are concerned with is their own apartment. In the week that I have been here the light bulb in the staircase has burned out and was obviously not going to be replaced unless we did it. Mark bought a bunch of light bulbs and replaced it, so now everyone is using the light again. That is how it works here. Anyway attached are some pictures of our Moldovan home. On Saturday we visited another Fulbright Professor and their wife who had a pizza making dinner at their apartment. I had not seen any other apartments yet, but once I saw their place I understood why somebody referred jokingly to our apartment as the Penthouse. Our place is located right downtown in the middle of the city. A great place to be since walking is our main from of getting around. Mark did manage to get two bikes, so we have also biked around the city but so far I have only seen 3 other bikers. Biking is not a common way for people to get around, and roads are not set-up for it. While I am getting more used to it now I still feel that I am getting some disapproving looks while biking around. Maybe that's because I don't fit the typical dress code. In my next post I’ll talk more about what women wear.