vernisage, the armenian flea market

if you click on the pictures, you can get a bigger version...

I went to Vernisage this weekends, which is kind of a cross between a middle easter bazaar and an flea market. They joke that you can get ANYTHING at Vernisage, and that isn't far from accurate. I didn't take a picture, but i found a sweet 1970s Soviet world map, all in cyrillic, with the Soviet Union intact. Bit the selections run the gamut from tourist tchotchkas and factory-made shit to an antique bust of Lenin.
Its pretty cool, just for all the variety. Everyone in the city has something to get at vernisage. There is alot of tourist stuff, but that is just one component. Alot of this is for the day-to-day living of local Armenians. You can literally just come down to vernisage and sell whatever you want. When me and Leslie moved in, there was this awful blue-ish fluorescent lightbulb in one socket. Once we replaced it, we joked that we need to go down to Vernisage some weekend, set a tablecloth out on the sidewalk and place this one lightbulb in the middle of the cloth and sit there until someone comes and buys the lightbulb.
So I just realized, looking through my pictures from vernisage, that all of these objects have one thing in common. These are all objects that might turn up in a tom waits song. False teeth. Miscellaneous egg beater parts, antique daggers and bayonettes, religious paintings, old world maps of countries that no longer exist, fine silver, china teacups, distilling equipment for making vodka, medals won in wars, musical instruments, pigs feet, hammers, parts to a sink, coffee urns, old coins, chess boards, old cameras and typewriters, threadbare rugs, figurines of forest animals. Its like walking into fucking Tom Waits’ imagination every Saturday and Sunday, just behind the metro station, next to the fountain that doesn’t work.
















Peanuts dipped in honey and then rolled in sesame seeds? Yeah. They're pretty good. Just tell yourself that the old boy sellin' em has clean hands. Just let yourself believe that. It'll be ok. They taste so good. Its worth it. Try one. Here.




















No. Thats not a gag girt from Spencer Gifts. That lady right there has a byucket full'a pigs feet, ready to take home for dinner! Believe it. She just paused on her way home, all nonchalant, to chat with her friend.


Here you have science stuff, test tubes and beakers and whatnot for building your own vodka still (a national passtime in Armenia, which I would like to learn)




Yeah those little thingies? Yeah those are false teeth. This table was right next to a seceltion of dentist tools. Placque scrapers and those little mirrors.