a wooden toolbox

This picture is taken in a small outside market in the North of Baku. While most stalls sell fruits and vegetables, this one is dedicated to wooden tools.

In the front row are pestles (I guess) in different sizes and elaboration. Behind them, the long, rather thin, round stick is an Azerbaijani rolling pin. They are much thinner than the ones I know from Germany and also longer. In Azerbaijan they are mainly used to roll the dough for qutabs, the thin cakes filled with either herbs, meet, cheese or pumpkin. On the right side it is adorned by ornaments burned into the wood. And finally, in the back row are cutting boards. The price was one manat – approximately one dollar. While I got ready to make this investment, the shop owner made me a gift of one of the cutting boards.

I often got paid for my “service” of taking pictures of shops or their owners by getting fruits, bread or this time a cutting board.

market in Sabunçu

Sabunçu is just outside of Baku, a small town surrounded by oil fields. According to Wikipedia begin of the 20th century it produced 35% of Azerbaijan’s oil and Azerbaijan produced about 50% of the world’s production at time – make your math.

Within the mall town you do not see much from the oil richness around and its market is just a normal market with all kind of things to buy.

It always amazes me that most people buy the factory bread rather than the more tasty tendir bread – it is probably matter of price: a loaf of factory bread is 40 qepik in Baku rather than 50 for the tendir bread and provides more slices.
The market has all the conserved fruits and vegetables you can find in Baku, but also fresh produce and kitchen ware like these huge pots. It was already late afternoon and stalls were about to be closed and the chickens, not doomed for the pot this day, were put back into their boxes.

Not many foreigners come to this place. I walked away with an apple as a gift from one of the fruit vendors.

Yaşıl bazar in fall

Yaşıl bazar, the green bazar in Baku, is my favorite market in Baku with its fresh produce, cheese, dried fruits and nuts. It is mainly located in a huge hall close to Taebris street and the railway station. A few stalls are located outside in a yard, where vendors offer their produce directly out of the truck. Yaşıl Bazar in early spring was one of my first pages on this blog and with early fall it is a good time to revisit the bazar.

The green melons with their red spongy inside make always a catchy, colorful picture. The fall offers also grapes, of course the famous Azerbaijani pomegranates as well as fresh walnuts and those of last year still in offer. Onions come in truck loads and are sold in huge bags for wholesale or in smaller batches in retail.

fresh walnuts

walnut pile

grapes and pommegranates

truck with onion bags

As in spring the women at the market are always a worth a picture.