More shopping

Again, in Belgrade, I came across a cd shop quite near my hotel, which had a nice feel but incredibly ordinary stock (ok jazz, but not that good) and pretty steep prices. Other than that, shops provided little interest, with cursory peeks in clothing stores around the main shopping streets (in Sofia, too) suggesting bargains being few and far between.

Sofia, I’d say, is a slightly more promising shopping prospect than Belgrade, but then maybe because it’s smaller. The centre has a similarly swanky shopping area, although shabbier, more interesting shops - including a couple of decent bookshops - are close at hand.

What, though, of rustic tat as remodelled and re-priced by cynical profiteers down at the tourist market? Having decided the Thomas Cook Miniguide was dreadful, I took a deep breath and decided to give it a last chance with what was described as the “unmissable” market to the north of the Alexander Nevsky church. There was a promise of ‘not very good art’, tacky religious icons and Russian dolls. I should’ve given the area a swerve, but given that Russian Dolls are one of my five-year-old niece’s favourites, decided to have a look.

Somewhat predictably, Cook and the street market both let me down. The market existed with a few stalls opening well after the time indicated by the rotten guidebook. And yes, there was a reasonable smattering of ‘not very good art’ and tacky religious icons. No Russian Dolls though. The best on offer - at first glance - were a few random and deeply undesirable looking 1950s LPs and a few crappy street signs (I usually like this sort of thing, but these looked homemade). Somewhat more disturbing was the Nazi memorabilia - enough to make me wonder if the damned stuff isn’t still being produced for maudlin, nationalist customers.

My shopping interest was piqued, however, by one particular line of goods. Fountain pens. One stallholder had a grubby collection, most of which looked as if they’d never worked, let alone stand any likelihood of doing so in the future. I steered away, although the stallholder’s persistence and the fact he wasn’t selling Nazi wares prompted me to ask how much a rather dilapidated pen cost. Not much. I was half tempted when he described it as ‘Bulgarian’, but decided to go back a different stall I’d just drifted away from on account of the stallholder being busy. It had a far more promising collection of Parkers and Pelikans.