Saturday, May 3, 2008

Tolkochka Bazaar, Ashgabat--pictures






These are from Tolkochka Bazaar in Ashgabat. By far it was the most fascinating bazaar I have seen, and it was also the first opportunity I have had to see an animal bazaar. When was the last time you saw a camel pushed into the back of a truck and driven away??? People also just loaded up the trunks of their cars with goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, and just about anything else you can imagine. The sheep that we saw were all Marco Polo sheep--a variety described by Marco Polo on his travels through the region, and which are known for their very large hindquarters.


These pictures show some scenes around the animal bazaar (how many goats do you think you can fit in your Lada? The count in the picture is 4 kids and 2 adult goats). There is another shot of the food bazaar. Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures in the main bazaar where they have all of the carpets. Probably because my hands were full with the carpets I bought!


A note on the camels--they are all dromedaries (one humped), which was rather surprising. The area was once part of a region known as Bactria, and bactrian camels have 2 humps (we rode bactrians in China). Today, most of the camels you can see in Turkmenistan are dromedaries, while the much hardier bactrian camels can be found in much colder climates to which the dromedaries are poorly adapted.

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