Usually, I buy everything I need at the supermarkets—it’s comfortable, you can take a closer look at any item, and discounts still exist there, too. Air conditioners, plenty of space, free choice. I rarely stop at the tiny groceries to the right of my house. To get the shopping done, I’d have to go around all of them, which would take too much time. Time’s precious nowadays. Only when I forget to buy some little thing do I turn left toward those low-key groceries.
Olena is sitting in the back. You won’t see her when you enter the store, even though the place is tiny. Olena and her husband tried to cram as many things as possible in that space. They sell mostly groceries and dairy products. Ice cream is also there—no wonder, it’s summer, after all. Few shoppers step in, though. To chase away the thoughts about poor sales, Olena is pouring over a newspaper. She always welcomes the shoppers with a friendly greeting and starts to push for her items straightaway.
“Take this butter. It doesn’t matter that it’s cheap. Where do they make it? It’s not clear yet. But it’s good. Take it and you won’t regret it. I got it three weeks ago for the first time. I buy it myself, too.”
“Okay. And one ice cream, please. Or better, two.”
While Olena is busy bagging my groceries, I ask her in a casual voice:
“How’s it going, aunt Lena”?
“You see how it is, don’t you? You could hear a pin drop,” she lets out a heavy sigh.
If they hire a saleswoman, they might as well shut their store down—there will be no point to bother with it any longer, she says. The employee’s wages will nibble away all their profit. They keep it up only because it’s a family business. Olena works at the store. Her husband sells fresh eggs and oil at the farmers’ market nearby. When Olena runs out of something, he hops in his van and drives to pick up some more. Her elder daughter sells vegetables in the neighboring stall. Her younger daughter and even her grandson help them out from time to time.
“Everybody shops at the supermarkets. I perfectly understand them—sales, discounts…I can’t offer anything like that for the life of me. What can you do if this ice cream you got,” she rattles two ice cream bars in her hand over the counter, “costs seven hryvnias at the supermarket, while I get it from the sales rep for nine hryvnias. What kind of competition is that? How can I make both ends meet? People want things for cheap… Everybody’s strapped for cash.”
I regret I didn’t buy four bars of ice cream. I could’ve put them in the freezer—they wouldn’t have sat there longer than a month. Or six bars… Olena made me think of my mother. Back in early 1990s, mom pushed a shopping trolley full of cheap Turkish chocolate bars to the market. Then she bought a Zhiguli car with a rusty bottom, then a newer model, and finally, a Volkswagen Caddy. She went to bed at two in the morning and woke up at six. Mom shivered with cold at the makeshift markets. She paid draconian taxes. And she heard all those expecting the Soviet feast to continue hiss “profiteer” behind her back. Well, she did what she could.
“It doesn’t make any difference to us anymore, but our kids… What would they do?” Olena says from behind the counter. “How would they make a living? Unless they run away from this country…”
“Hmm,” I murmur, remembering all of a sudden that I ran out of salt and that a bag of sugar would also be nice to have, even though at the supermarket it’s three hryvnias cheaper.
Local groceries are shutting down one by one. You can hardly keep track of that. A grocery chain store “Moloko”, or “Milk”, closed down in winter. It used to be very popular. But even that didn’t help it to hold out. Its spot is now taken by another chain store selling beer on tap. Today, beer is more sought-after than milk. Household supplies, which shut down last year, gave way to a slot machine parlor. You can easily recognize it from afar by its blacked-out windows. If that was a decent place, why would they cover up? By the way, there’re as many as four slot machine parlors in my neighborhood, their names quite telling: “Fortuna”—fortune, “Zabava”—entertainment. The guards often smoke by the tightly closed door, letting people in with cash, letting them out with…well, it depends how lucky you are. The police just drive past, unconcerned.
“Nobody cares any longer,” Olena says sadly, handing me a bag of sugar and a pack of salt. “At first, we went out of our way. We did our best for our kids’ sake, so they’d get something from us. We toiled away like slaves. But now I see that it’s just getting worse and worse…Winter is the worst. I don’t even want to talk about it. The bills are so outrageous that you might as well put the butter outside and turn off the fridge.”
It’s true—you can easily put the butter outside in winter. Barely anyone walks there at that time, anyway. How could they, if it’s either rough, icy surface or knee-deep puddles. Olena builds “bridges” from wooden crates or pieces of cardboard for potential customers. The market administration doesn’t care about it. So, you should be very careful, walking there in the twilight. At the same time, the sidewalk in front of the supermarkets is all swept up clean. The shop windows bright with a welcoming glow—come in, please, we’ve got everything you need!
“What a joke happened last week! It’s just ridiculous,” Olena clasps her hands. “A tax raid! A guy walking around with a folder under his arm. He comes here and says, “Show me your sales permit.” Oh my goodness, I say, but I’m not a street seller! Would anyone allow me to keep a store without a permit?”
“Did you show him that paper?” I ask.
“I did. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Didn’t they feel like stopping at that parlor asking for permits?” I sneer. “Or have they gone blind?”
“Guess so, if they don’t notice them. He scared away those villagers at the curbside and went back. What would come out it, Sergii, huh?”
I just shrug my shoulders. How should I know?
“That’s the place we’ll start frequenting soon. Every single day!” she points at a tiny store which no longer sells spices and dried fruit, but offers cash until payday.
Credit unions like this is another contemporary trend. Popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain, they seem to compete with beer on tap and illegal gambling parlors.
“Sure. Only how are we going to pay them back?” I say, trying to match Olena’s tone.
In silence, she moves some jars and boxes onto a higher shelf, so it would be easier for customers to see them. Only there are no customers. To everything there’s a season. Grocery stores like this—where a saleswoman you know offers you the best foods she herself takes home—are slowly disappearing, while supermarkets are growing up like fairy-tale palaces, out of thin air, overnight.
“It’s a disaster,” Olena says, standing on a ladder. “We’ll all go work for oligarchs soon. Supermarket cashiers—that’s what we’ll become. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“Give me that box of granola, please, too. No, that one on the left. With nuts, yes.”
I pay her and walk home past the market stalls. Empty rows. An elderly woman asks about tomatoes, running her fingers over each one. Three tomatoes. That’s how many she buys.
“Why did I get that granola?” I wonder. “I don’t like it anyway.”
Sergii Osoka
