At Struga marketplace

Halpern, Joel Martin · [ca. May 1954]

Marketplace in Struga, near Ohrid. 1954 field notes read:"In Orhid too we were given a car, this time a jeep with driver so we were able to go to the small town of Struga on the northern end of the lake on a market day. This market, of all we have seen, was certainly the most colorful, even though it was very well-organized and regimented and not as natural as it could be. Just this year they built rows of brick and wood stalls in a modern design as meat department house in a glass-enclosed building with stone floors, a very functional and attractive structure. This one row of stalls was for crafts, opanke (sandals), pottery, horn knives, one row for vegetables, one for cheese, the other for milk products etc. "All the grain-selling and livestock trade took place in the large area at the end, and as there was no place for women who were selling handiwork, they squatted on the curbs between the rows of stalls with their wares in their laps. We bought several pairs of brightly colored knitted socks, not for their ethnographic value as there were rows of black, green and purple, very far from the orange red and black of the original colors from here, but because they will be colorful and interesting gifts. Everyone in a costume and the variants in national dress in the villages just in the small radius around Struga is amazing. I think Joel [Halpern] got some swell pictures before it started to rain."