We Armenians love meat. It is enough to pay a visit to one of Yerevan's markets to be convinced of this. Yerevanians call this market “GUM market.”

Right across from it butchers “advertise” to visitors their meat, laid out on a table, the ground, or a car.

 

 

Unshaven, with an apron stained with blood and dirt, with black fingers, this meat-dealer is not a “rare phenomenon” in the outdoors meat-selling area adjacent to the GUM market. With this appearance the dealer invites every passerby to buy his “excellent” meat.

 

 

 

In the summer heat under the scorching sun, the smell of meat becomes unbearable for the passerby, but the dealers continue praising their fresh meat and offering it to people.

 

 

 

Every meat-dealer has his permanent customers and buyers are convinced that their dealer is giving them fresh and clean meat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The meat-dealers were surprised when we told them that they work in unhygienic and dirty conditions. 45-year old buyer Gohar said, “Why should I worry about the hygiene of the market? The market director should think about that.”

 

 

 

One woman was disturbed with the smell of the meat and with the fact that the meat-dealer kept assuring her that the meat is fresh. “I told him that the meat smells like dog, while he was convincing me that he received it today. But the smell tells everything. And then it's sufficient for me to take a look around. Are these are acceptable conditions for selling meat?”

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f you dare to look at all this with disgust, the meat-dealers call you a Phillistine. “Why do you disrespect my pure meat?”

 

 

 

 

When we were photographing their “pure” meat, they were getting uneasy and saying that “we want to hurt their business”.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite all this many buyers are satisfied with the conditions of the market, with the sellers and with the prices, which at this market are a bit lower than those in the stores.

 

Photostory by Lilit Nurijanyan
YSU Journalism Faculty, 1st year