Traditional Small Turkish Markets / Bakkal!
Our Lovely Traditional Small Markets
Modern time has brought both good and bad things to our lives. Technology has changed the life a lot, both negatively and positively. One of the things that I miss in Turkey is our traditional markets that we call " bakkal" in Turkish language. All Turkish people who are over 20 years old can easily remember those small shops that we used to have in streets and buy all we need. Unfortunately, We have been losing them day by day because of the changing economy system. There are still some of them in Turkey but they are getting less every day and I guess in a few years, we will have to lose all of them because of the existence of big supermarkets and shopping malls. That is really sad.
The Meeting Point of Public
Our small markets or bakkals are not only to buy food or some other things that we need in our daily life. Markets are the common places that people see and talk to eachother. All streets used to have small markets but unfortunately, many of them are replaced with some big supermarkets whose owners are the unknown people that we never see. Having a small market in your street is a good way to socialise. Turkish people usually trust their small traditional markets as they are face to face with the owners every day. When they want to buy meat, they always have their own butchers because they would like to eat the food that they trust. Small markets are the places to create the feeling of community!
My Childhood
When I was a kid, I used live in a small street where we used to have a local and traditional market. When I promised my father to go and buy something from market, he always agreed to give me some extra money. I used to buy some chocolate and chewing gums with some small amount of money. I am sure, many turkish people who are in my age now can easily remember those times. I really hate big super markets in our streets now. Please take me back to the old times when things were natural
The Future of Bakkals ( Local Markets)
It is so sad to state this here but the future for local markets is not so clear. What is the reason of losing them? It is actually us. We don't prefer to go to small markets anymore as big super markets offer more options which are usually cheaper especially in famous market chains. There are many of them in Turkey, but I don't want to give their names not to advertise their markets. The end is really soon for them. The only way to save them is to start supporting them by buying our needs from them.
Do you have similar local markets in your countries? Are they able to survive in this hard economy system? I would like to learn about them If you kindly post a comment about your countries. That would be nice to talk about them. Thanks for reading, steem on!
First of all thank you for the nice article. I experienced these periods as well. It was a really nice day.
you are welcome, l am glad that you like it 👍