The Making of Markets

Exploring the roots of the Central Asian bazaar

Ana is a stout Russian woman, lively and wrinkled, ready to attract customers from the crowds wandering in front of her. Most tend to pass her by, on the lookout for other vendors and goods; others are allured by the rusted trinkets she holds in her hands.

When I first meet Ana, she tries to sell me a silver badge bearing the image of Lenin. On her table are stacks of floral teacups, an accordion, some books, coins and posters, all proudly declaring the triumph of the hammer and sickle.

“I find most of these things from vendors on the side of the road,” she explains. “I’ve been collecting them for almost twenty years. Most people are happy to get rid of them.”

There’s a deep irony that comes with an encounter at Ana’s booth. After chatting with her about her Lenin medals and Soviet coins, I turn a corner to see rows upon rows of Adidas and Reebok outfits, cosmetic brands from Europe, and kitchen appliances from China. I spend the rest of that morning exploring the market, where people boast that their generators or their bikes come from Germany.

All the while, I keep remembering that, on some corner of this bazaar, a woman sells the antique propaganda of a former government that is probably rolling in its grave.

. . .

Visiting the marketplaces around Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, can often feel like a step into a current. A rush of visitors and workers fill the already narrow paths, leaving a person no choice but to keep moving forward. There’s a constant rhythm flowing in the background, whether it’s music from a stand, or negotiations from a loud vegetable seller, or advertisements from echoing PA systems. Outside the bazaar is often a bottleneck of cars, each trying to find a creative place to park.

To foreigners like me, it’s hard to imagine that the current has ever had a beginning or an ending. There’s a sense of constancy to these places, as if they’ve always existed as long as Bishkek has been around. They may have seasons of ebb and flow, but we get the idea that these bazaars have always been stirring in the region, and that they will always, no matter the day or hour, keep moving forward.

This is the crux of the irony concerning Bishkek’s bazaars: they feel as if they have been around for centuries, but they were birthed in a very modern world. Though they harken images of the Silk Road and the caravanserai, the roots of the marketplace don’t go as deep as we might expect.

. . .

“There were no bazaars in the city during the Soviet Union,” my taxi driver says. “Well, maybe there was one. It looks very different now.”

I keep getting the same answer from everyone I ask. The markets weren't around; or, they were around, but they weren’t around like they’re around now. Most people aren’t exactly sure. I’ve started to wonder if the bazaar’s sense of constancy is a more universal phenomenon, not just resonating with expats.

The oldest bazaar I’ve been able to trace, the Alamedin Bazaar, appears to have originated sometime in the 1970s. This bit of information was given to me by a fruit vendor, who kept joking that another fruit vendor leaves his produce out overnight in the open air. I’ve gathered that other bazaars, like better-known Osh, came in the 80s or 90s, a time when Soviet ideals were slowly being dismantled.

Though they harken images of the Silk Road and the caravanserai, the roots of the marketplace don’t go as deep as we might expect.

The USSR had always worked with the goal of creating an economically self-sufficient state, where the average person would have his television created at one end of the nation and his shirt created at the other. Private enterprise and imported consumer goods, two backbones of the modern day bazaar, were either outlawed or heavily stigmatized. Under the Soviet Union, the Silk Road ideology was essentially reversed; no longer could goods come from a diversity of peoples and places.

But the 1980s saw a cultural and economic revolution within the crumbling Soviet system. Food shortages had people starving on the streets. People began to see inadequacies within their Soviet products. Gorbachev’s perestroika began to settle in. It’s no coincidence that Bishkek’s marketplaces were born during this era.

Despite our initial assumptions, it’s possible that these markets were made on the grounds of looking forward to a new system, rather than looking backwards to an older way of life.

. . .

The Dordoi Bazaar, just north of Bishkek, claims the title of being the largest market in all of Central Asia. The claim is hard to refute; it may be better to call Dordoi a city built on shipping containers. It’s a winding labyrinth of metal cargo boxes, numbering close to ten thousand, all double-stacked and laid out in various districts.

A quick browse through Dordoi’s streets (if such a thing is possible) reveals an interesting trend. Interspersed throughout the souvenir shops and Kyrgyz restaurants are mounds of Chinese goods and electronics. Aisles are lined with Turkish rugs. One of the districts is called “Europe,” while another is run by the Dungan ethnic group. Economic self-sustenance is an idea completely foreign to Dordoi.

Despite our initial assumptions, it’s possible that these markets were made on the grounds of looking forward to a new system, rather than looking backwards to an older way of life.

As an outsider, it’s easy for me to assume that this market was made only to memorialize the golden age of Central Asian trade, as if some people decided to do a tourist reconstruction of the Silk Road. What I forget, however, is that Dordoi Bazaar was built around 1992, almost a generation ago, in a time when people would line up outside for hours just to receive a loaf of bread.

Places like Dordoi Bazaar were built to meet a particular need, to respond to a particular problem created by an economic system that left masses of people empty-handed and hungry. The result is a complete inversion of Soviet ideals. Self-sustenance is answered with electronics from China. Command economy is answered with a market.

. . .

Much to my surprise, I’m starting to believe that the bazaars around Bishkek don’t really find their history in the Silk Road. What I’m still trying to understand now, however, is why something so new like the Dordoi Bazaar feels so timeless. I know that these places haven’t been around for very long, but why do I still feel as if I’m reliving trade along the Silk Road anytime I go into a bazaar?

Maybe it’s simply the nature of the market. At its root, the market will always consist of people like Ana, someone who spends years of her life collecting things she finds valuable. She collects, hoping that other people value what she values. She also knows that things collected by others, even those from entirely different backgrounds, are worth something as well. She knows she can’t collect every valuable thing on her own, so she gives up things precious to her in exchange for things precious to others.

Put a group of Ana’s in the same room together, and you’ve made a market. Whether the fifteenth century or the twenty first, that current never changes.

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