The cultural experience of the Uzbek bazaar
The bazaars we saw in Uzbekistan were like nothing that I have ever seen back home. The culture, setting, and social expectations of the bazaar are completely different than any Target, Trader Joe’s, or bulk store. Let me attempt to transport you to a bazaar in Uzbekistan. First off, imagine a farmer’s market, but triple the size. A sprawling city of tents and vendors. What are people selling? Fruits and vegetables, sure, but also fresh meat and bread and buckets of spices and assorted candies and camel wool scarves and silks. All being sold side by side, although there are designated sections for each product. Each stand displays a variety of offerings. In the fruit section there are crates of cherries, strawberries, apples, apricots, and peaches. The fruit’s vibrant color and strong aroma displayed abundance and freshness. In the spices section, there are massive bags or barrels of each spice or nut variety. Imagine the bulk section of a supermarket, but much bigger.
The next facet of the bazaar that I must tell you about is the culture. Walking through the bazaar, you are likely to get called out to and invited to try a variety of foods from a vendor’s stand. This seemed to happen more often to girls than guys on our trip and we began calling the experience getting “девушка-ed.” Девушка means “young lady” or “miss” in Russian and that was the term that the vendors called out to us as we walked down the isles. Of course, when the vendor wanted to get a guy’s attention, they would call out, молодой человек, which means “young man.” In a single walk through a bazaar in Khiva, I counted at least 10 девушка-s.
While it was strange to be called out to in that way, it was clearly part of the culture of the bazaar. Each vendor was hopeful to get our business in a crowd of many stands with similar offerings. Once we walked up to a stand, we were offered samples of various foods. Whether you are in a Costco in the midwest or in a bazaar in Uzbekistan, the free samples are a smart marketing move. Once they’ve hooked you on the free samples, its easy to pay more than reasonable for a half kilogram of fruit or nuts. The vendors are quick to recognize English and increase the prices. In fact, we made an effort to speak only in Russian to each other as we walked around the bazaar in order to seem less American.
It was strange to pretend to be Russian tourists. It was strange because Uzbek people speak Uzbek or Tajik or even Karakalpak more frequently than Russian. Speaking in Russian didn’t make us seem local, it just made us seem not American. In class earlier in the term, we discussed the usage of Kazakh, Russian, and even English in Kazakhstan. All three languages have their place in Kazakhstani life. Unlike Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan seems to have largely abandoned the Russian language. Most of the people we spoke with still spoke enough Russian to converse with us, but it was clear that it wasn’t their everyday language.
So why go incognito as Russian tourists instead than just being our silly American selves? Aside from the obvious reasons of immersing ourselves in Russian language and chasing the adrenaline rush that follows pretending to be someone you’re not, both of our language choices were decidedly foreign in the bazaar. What truly motivated us, however, was our discovery of the “American price.” Why did they raised prices more for American tourists than for Russian tourists? I don’t know. Perhaps the difference in price has to do with the geographic vicinity of Russia and sheer amount of Russian tourists in Uzbekistan. Although actually, Russia doesn’t directly boarder Uzbekistan at all. Or maybe it has to do with the reputation of America in Central Asia. Folks in both Bukhara and Khiva wanted to take pictures of and with us, presumably becasue we looked American. Not many Americans travel to Uzbekistan for vacation. Perhaps they assume we don’t understand the national currency, the som, or even the language. Both of which were partially true.
While the “American price” was probably a result of multiple of factors, what mattered to us, was that it existed in the first place. We are Americans, yes, but we are also college students, so speaking in Russian often kept prices down. We still paid tourist prices, of course, but some things can’t be avoided. We made many purchases at the bazaar: silks, nuts, apricots, halva, camel wool scarves, and locally grown cherries. It was truly a special experience to be part of the bazaar culture, even if just for a few hours. In the (translated and paraphrased) words of Anna Mikhailovna, “Let’s go do capitalism!”
