Last Sunday morning: Vernissage Marketplace

I had an un-rushed opportunity to stroll around the Vernissage outdoor market, a mecca for all sorts of commerce in goods both used and new. Spread over several acres and loosely organized by zones for commodities such as linens, rugs, paintings, automobile parts, laboratory equipment, as well as lots of arbitrary placement for souveniers such as clocks, handbags, table and wall ornaments, pottery, musical instruments, chess sets, just about anything you would want to carry away. There are also a large amount of families selling possessions from arbitrarily placed blankets (though they try to be near the better vendors). Being there first thing in the morning, the prices were often high and firm, though I occasionally invoked the "first customer of the day" good-luck discount. I could also go to more than one vendor and engage in real hard bargaining, as I did with aquiring a set of three cotton table clothes (one large and two small) at the same price that the largest one was quoted originally. The fluctuation of the American dollar is making life as a vendor challenging, as they would accept payment in either dollars or drams (the Armenian currency, about 303 drams to $1 dollar yesterday). Picture by Karine.