On Sundays, in Uzhhorod, there is a flea market, named Svinachka (a diminutive of pig). Here, you can find all sorts, from second-hand clothes to Soviet knick-knacks, piles of cables, or, in my case, a perfectly running air fryer for 12 USD or 10.50 Euro.
Last time my wife and I were here, my German friend and I got two authentic beer steins for about 5 Euros for both. You can sell them in Germany for a very handsome profit, as one of those costs around 40 dollars on international platforms that don’t do business in Ukraine. Business idea, anyone?
The market is located in an area called “Radvanka”. This area is one of the less affluent ones, and is home to a rather sizeable Roma community. Unless you live nearby or head to the ATB supermarket, you won’t really need to go there, unless this market is on.
The market, however, is a true experience. A real sense of going back to the wilder 90s and 00s in Ukraine, where you can buy anything off everyone, a working-class hub of sellers from all backgrounds, from the local Roma, old russian speaking babushkas, 80-year-old dudes selling bicycles, village folk selling their cheese, eggs, or live chickens, ducks and rabbits, and everything in between.
You will hear so many languages all at once and all the swear words in them. Ukrainian in the Zakarpattian dialect, Russian, Surzhyk (the blend of Ukrainian and Russian), Hungarian, Slovak, Roma, and more.
As you approach from the city, you will start seeing the market emerge. It’s as ramshackle at this stage as you can imagine. The sellers, at this part of the market, simply throw a few sheets down and, with either considerable care or none at all, place their goods. There are people standing outside the local minimarket, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, cognac, and chatting; buyers perusing; and the sellers trying to upsell everything.
At this stage, I saw: piles of shoes, random stuff obviously cleared out from a house such as old electronic cables, a guy selling old soviet pins and paraphernalia for a fraction of the cost I know you can buy them from sellers in the UK, vases, cooking equipment, all the various ashtrays, cups, glasses, teapots, decanters (particularly fish-shaped ones, a weird Soviet tradition, it seems) and all the like.
Everything any post-Soviet babushka has in their house is all here, for cheap, sometimes in great condition, often not so.
You can also find broken phones, bits of computers, and random junk that I suspect had been donated a long time ago and found in second-hand stores or in bins, just in case someone wants to buy. It was here that we spotted an air fryer. It was being sold by a woman who spoke to us in a sort of Ukrainian-Russian surzhyk, though I suspect it was not her first language. She was very kind and obviously enthusiastic when we asked about the price of this air fryer. 500 UAH. A real bargain. But did it work? She said, “Well, I don’t know how it works anyway…you can take it to a local cafe and ask them to test it for you,” and we said we would come back.
We walked along. You then see more organised sellers, let’s say, using their cars ( banged up old Ladas or modern 4x4s, or anything in between) to sell goods from their car. Live fish, cured meats, fresh dairy products, eggs, plants, garden supplies, tools, or more. I suspect many of these sellers come from farms and villages. There’s also a rustic, cheap, outdoor cafe/restaurant, selling beer, strong alcohol, shashlyk (BBQ meat skewers), and some other simple foods like pelmeni and vareneky.
Once we heard a bit of a conversation where a man said to a seller, “Oh, you’re a gypsy?” and her colleague replied, “Yes, we are. So what, are gypsies not people?”
As you walk further, you approach what is more of an official-looking market. People have containers, proper tables, and sell goods in a much more organised manner. Before you get into that area, you walk past the live chickens and ducks at various stages of their lives, and this time rabbits, in cages.
The chickens were popular, routinely getting stuffed into cardboard boxes. Whether to be for farms, gardens, or for dinner, who could say? While an element of cruelty is, evidently, at play here, if they are treated to actual space on their farms and sold here, which, judging by their size and health, seems to be the case, I suspect they have better lives than those in factory farm cages.
You can also get some fried pyrizhky at this point — meat, cabbage, or potato in a thick, bready dough and deep fried. A satisfying calorie bomb.
The organised part of the market consists mostly of shoes, more knick-knacks, home supplies, wooden goods, and more. It actually is the least interesting, lacking the grit and chaos of the rest of the market.
We walked, got some local cheese and eggs, and ate in the cafe, debating if we wanted the air fryer. The service was blunt and efficient, and the majority of the patrons were already on the beer and shots at 11.30 am (mind you, it is a Sunday). It felt a long way from the fancy bars in the centre of Uzhhorod.
We came back, took the air fryer, and paid. She promised that if nothing worked, she would return the money. We went over the road and found a local cafe and asked to use a plug. They were quite accommodating. I said cafe, more like a roadside cafe. A small room that sells coffee, hot dogs, burgers, and other greasy food. We couldn’t get the plugs to work, as they were very “strong”. They tested behind the kitchen, and it all worked fine.
I had a surprisingly decent espresso, and that, along with a load of other random things, including a knife for 0.3 USD given to us as change for a teapot that cost another 0.6 USD.
A true working-class location. Real life. It permeates every facet of this market. People wheeling and dealing, some desperately selling their home goods to scrape by, others selling organic and fresh goods without any regulations, and people from all over the city, of all shapes and colours, trying to find a deal.
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