Market day in Kiev!

 Today we braved a trip out with the native folks!  Just about 2 blocks from our apartment we found a huge outdoor farmers' market!  Unfortunately, we weren't willing to brave much of the local cuisine! We limited our meal selection for the day to fresh bread, a kielbasa type of cold meat, cheese, keiffer, chips, and a pomegranate.

 It was about 40 degrees and we had a light drizzle, but both customers and vendors were out in full force!

  

This vendor had a nice selection of cultured/fermented veggies:  beets, cabbage, carrots, and seaweed...all local staples!  We did try the cabbage and carrots, they weren't horrible, I just wouldn't walk across the street to get them again!

Here was a good selection of salted fish--most likely caught and bought from the Black Sea, which is just about 12 hours South of Kiev.  If we had our translator with us, we might have gotten some, but we would have liked to known what we were getting!

 Ok, for all of you Eden View meat customers--here is why we have the USDA!!!  Unfortunately, the picture is fuzzy, but the second item in on the right is a sheep head(with the hide intact)!  All of the meat is out in the open, unwrapped, and without coolers--you have to ask yourself, does this change in the summer?

 

Here is another meat vendor...they didn't seem too happy that we took their picture!

Fresh eggs, pickled livers, kidneys, and gizzards sit right along side the chicken, ducks, and goose (with their feet on of course!)







It was great to see how the Ukrainians do much of their shopping, the market was huge, my guess is 15 acres or so!  We found just about anything and everything you might need--clothes, toiletries, hats, shoes, trinkets, smokes, booze, and even a magazine shop.  It is unlikely that Wal-Mart would survive in this culture, these folks really do buy fresh, buy local!