The culture of Bazaar - Kapalı Çarṣı

If you live in Kayseri of course you know Kapalı çarṣı, the biggest bazaar in the city. You can find every kind of goods, from shoes to phones, clothes, jewellery and so on.

Who can guess how many shops are inside? Ok, I will tell you: there are exactly 910 shops. So many! To go inside you can use 18 doors, located on the perimeter, connected by 16 roads.
When I went inside I got the feeling to be welcomed, the shops are small and roads are narrow, not like in a mall. Tradespeople inside are relaxed (in Turkish tradespeople in bazar have a different name of other sellers, they are called Esnaf). It seems to go in a little community instead of a trade place.

What is the secret of the atmosphere inside bazaar? Tradespeople are not in competition with each other, even though they sell the same stuff. They trust each other so much that they share the key of their neighbour shop and they help each other. It’s really astonishing!Who works in a bazaar? Usually it’s an activity transmitted from father to son or from master to pupil. When you are a child, around five or six years old, you can start to learn how to become a trader.

We had the opportunity to speak with a shoes seller, Mehmet, who tells us about the history and culture of the bazaar. You can know more in the video.
https://youtu.be/badZh4xoQEo
His father started to work at the age of six and he worked there for 70 years, until he died. When he had the opportunity to be retired, he didn’t want to quit his job because it was his life, he was so used to be in bazaar that he couldn’t stay at home or go to café.

I was really fascinating by the culture of bazaar, maybe because in my country we are not used to have this kind of bazaars.