Athens Gets Rid Of Its Open Bazaar
Photos & Short Story by Zak Varvaresso
The open-air merchandise bazaar in the very center of Athens, has been a well-known ritual of the city for many decades now. Since the 2004 olympic games it has been relaunched around the Gazi, an area named after its Gas factory that preexisted there. In the recent years the municipality of Athens has tranformed the old establishment into a multi-cultural place for giggs and festivals as the gentrification process has been playing well its cards in this area for years.
Every week Sunday dawns with drifting freelance dealers laying out their merchindise as the large sidewalk of Ermou St. is filling with pavement stalls and square sheets on the ground. It has been almost ten years since unpriviledged junk collectors have been licenced to sell their stuff around this place, literlally a museum of things you forgot existed: 90’s PCs and toaster systems without any change to boot, old radio cassetes, used furniture and antiques, broken watches and retro memorabilia at any price you bargain with. Fanatic collectors, vintage entusiasts, young people having an old timer’s day away from the online shopping and everyday people looking for cheap practical things to buy, gather util late the afternoon making an otherwise boring empty street come alive . Along with them the usual hippie jewelry makers, street jugglers passing the hat and anyone with a statement to make or something to sell easily find their spot.
But there’re many others who certainly don’t share this groove. The nearby merchant owners of Monastiraki commercial zone -the official flea zone of Athens- don’t appreciate street bazaar as they sell kind-of the same deal into their stores, paying big money for rent. On the same hand the municipality authorities are being cornered by ultra conservative delegates who get sick of the view of of romma people selling jung under Acropolis and they pressure to move the whole” carnival” away from the tourists watch.
As a prelude, recently a group of outraged nationalists covered themselves up with citisen masks started to dismiss the bazaars attendees violently and to beat up the romma and people who tried to defend them.
DIY spirited street bazaar seen as a heritage of the eastern Turkish culture puts the public image of Athens as the Cradle of Western Civilization in peril. At the end of the day all that matters is the price when you buy and the price when you sell and the flawless white marbles of parthenon have been a hit for almost 200 years at no cost. And nobody wants to negoatiate a still profitable deal especially when crisis is about to knock on the front door.
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