Second Hand Market Redux

We headed back to the second hand market on Saturday morning in search of goodies again. Our first visit was not only fun, but fruitful!

This informal weekend flea market consumes a few small roads near the train station. But before you get there you walk through the bulk candy and nut market.

After the nuts and sweets, we walked over the train tracks where we could look down upon the vendors.

Everything is being hawked. From old clothing and boots

to a stove that has seen better days

to decorative Soviet trays

to old blue wooden window encasements

to newer Chinese imports.

Even spicy korean salads are sold, just in case you get a hankering,

but I don't think the donkey was up for sale. Although I didn't ask...

After a good hour of perusing the aisles, these were my finds for the day.

A cool old rattan basket sans latch.

Some old glass door knobs. I'll make use of them somewhere, some time.

This cool small laboratory-looking glass vessel. I love all things glass.

Two somoni (45 cents) for a dusty canister of old buttons for my neice, Samantha, who fashions cool jewelry from old buttons.

Aside: Sam's also graduating this May with a degree in social work and is interested in working with disadvantaged children. She's looking for an internship this summer in Dushanbe. Contact me if you are interested or have leads so I can gush over her accomplishments and get her resume to you.

Back to our regular scheduled programming. Buttons.

I forgot to buy ice cube trays while in the US in October. I love the huge ice cubes this tray makes. Beats the 99 cent plastic gadget from Target.

Look at the design that went into this lever. No wonder the Soviets were the first to launch a human into space.

This was a cool find. An old road map atlas book from the USSR. Just in case you wanted to drive your Volga from Dushanbe to Novosibirsk.

Our current and former stomping grounds. Tajikistan.

On the east side of the Caspian, Turkmenistan

and on the other side of the Caspian, Azerbaijan.

The warm 60 degree temps inspired me to buy these cute pots. I'm smart enough to know that this is the calm before the storm. Winter will come. Electricity regimes will follow. It will be cold.

After spending all of maybe ten dollars on the above purchases, we ventured to a new Italian Gelateria in town. That's right! Here in Dushanbe. It was my first time going, and Paul's fifteenth. If you know Paul, you know he loves all ice creams, with gelato being particularly high on the list of frozen scoops.

It's not much to look at. In fact, you'd drive right by it if you didn't know what waited on the other side of the door.

The minty green paint does nothing for neither one's complexion nor the food being served.

But aesthetics and pasta aside, we were here for this. And really only this.

The gelato.

It was cold. See? Brrrrrrrr.

And despite the brain freeze - ouch! -

it was delicious.

All in all, a perfect Saturday morning in the Dush.