A bit of a shock..

This is the continuation of the pazar talk in my previous entry last night...

I just got back from my beloved thursday pazar..n i have just discovered that the prices of vegetables n fruits in Sapanca n istanbul is like.... woahhhh..there is a biiiiiig gapppppp between the two places.

To illustrate..in Sapanca...for tomatoes. We bought 3 kilograms of tomatoes...(i usually buy 6 kgs for Sapanca house) n i repeat..good n fresh n no hormone from the garden tomatoes for the price of 1YTL...i repeat 3 kgs of tomatoes for 1YTL in Sapanca. Today, the general price of tomatoes in the perşembe pazar is 1.5ytl for ONE kilogram!! imagine my shock!!

The fruits..for example peaches. The price in istanbul..the prices range from 2 TYL to 3.5 YTL depending on the quality of the peaches for one kilogram. Again a big gap price. We bought şeftali aka peaches for 500 kuruş (half of 1YTL) for a kilogram....

The benefits of living in the town or vilages huh? for those living in istanbul, nothing is cheap..everything is expensive. I suppose the transportation costs, the fee each pazar seller has to pay the mafia (or they will get beaten or something-expensive rent), the rent of the pazar space from the municiple admin (cheap rent)..etc..etc..those add up to the expensive price of each product sold. The pazar in sapanca for example, they r town people. Most people sell the fruits n veggies they themselves grow..(for some)..the rent they pay to the mafia may be much much cheaper... besides, if they sell things expensively, who would buy them, right? I remember i had the same shock when we visited the turgutlu pazar in izmir years back.. everything seemed soooooo cheap...

The conclusion is... dont compare the prices of things in istanbul to other smaller towns. Still, pazar offers the freshest n the best fruits n vegetables, regardless of the price. It is definitely worth going to pazar rather than buying ur greens from the supermarket. Things r definitely sold much much cheaper than normal shops (clothing, shoes, etc..etc).Everything is at a bargain price. Yes.. go to the turkish pazar. U will love it. I still do :0)