Central Market in Tambov and the "KOLONKA"

The weather has finally turned towards spring and we wanted to share with you some of the sights of Tambov beginning with the Central Market place. This is a huge outdoor market where vendors set up small booths that sell just about anything you could want in the way of food products, household products, small hardware, various materials and interior decorating products such as wallpaper, curtain and furniture material as well as some window dressings and ceiling dressings. These are just a few pictures to give you the flavor of the market and a peek at the people of Russia who make their living by selling products seven days a week.

Various types of dried fruit

A lot of different candies and cookies

A woman selling Kbac (Kvas). This a drink that is made from fermented bread. It is non-alcoholic and tastes a little like bread pudding. I have heard Russians refer to it as Russian Pepsi.

Fruits and vegetables

A woman selling flowers

Macaroni row. Pasta here is called macaroni and the word pasta is the Russian word for paste, as in tooth paste (zubnaya pasta).

Security police on a row of vegetables.

Fish row. This area contains a variety of dried and fresh fish and even live fish in tanks.

So that is a brief look at our Central Market. We enjoy going to the market and just wandering around looking for those elusive items, such as lavash (flat bread), which sometimes are only available for a brief period of time.

We also wanted to share a short video of our kolonka. If you watch it Barb will give you the lighting procedure and you’ll see it in action!