vendors

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You can buy a bust of Stalin for ₾40 ($14) on the Samgori second-hand market. Photo: Sofi Mdivnishvili/OC Media.

Economy

In pictures | Struggle in the open-air: Tbilisi’s Navtlughi Bazaar

by Volodymyr Soboliev

•3 min read

The open-air bazaars of Tbilisi began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, as newly-independent Georgia experienced political and economic turmoil. Having lost their jobs and homes, newly-destitute citizens began selling their possessions as hyperinflation decimated pensions and savings. At the Navtlughi Bazaar in Samgori, different nationalities congregate with the same objectives. Georgians, Russians, Armenians and Azeris work side by side without regard for ethnic ori

Azerbaijan

Seeking acceptance: the Pakistanis building a new life in Azerbaijan

by Bahruz Samadov

•5 min read

Having moved 2,000 kilometres to a new country, a small community of Pakistanis have built a new life for themselves in Azerbaijan. Even for those who have married locals, have Azerbaijani children, and say they are Azerbaijanis themselves, obtaining official recognition for this — citizenship — is not straightforward. Reports have emerged in recent weeks of a number of South Asian people being deported from Azerbaijan for violating immigration laws. On 1 March alone, five Indian citizen

Armenia

Yerevan street vendors protest forced removal from Ferdowsi Market

by Volodymyr Soboliev

•7 min read

On 6 June, the Yerevan City Hall informed the vendors of the clothing market on Ferdowsi Street that construction work would begin there on 15 June. The vendors were asked to move their improvised pavilions to other spots. They remain dissatisfied with the decision and have asked for six months to relocate. The negotiations have so far been fruitless. [Read in Armenian — Հոդվածը հայերեն կարդացեք] ‘You see, almost all of my assortment is for the summer. I brought it from Turkey a month

Feature Stories

Tbilisi City Hall cracks down on street vendors

by Volodymyr Soboliev

•7 min read

Tbilisi City Hall has began a campaign to clear the streets of vendors selling clothes, books, fruits and vegetables, and various other things. They claim that they are a nuisance to pedestrians in the city’s busiest streets. Many of the vendors, however, claim that selling on the street is the only way they can survive. For years Malvina, 67, has sold clothes on a small counter in front of Akhmeteli Metro Station, in one of Tbilisi’s suburbs. Malvina helps other street vendors to move thei