Exploring markets is never in the list of things to do for Travellingcamera, unless there is anything special to explore. The name 'Russian Market' in capital city of Cambodia made me curious to visit the place and see what all it offers. Let's check out more about Russian market in this post and see what all to expect.
If the photograph above, the lady in this photograph is cleaning up different sorts of fish and other lady is helping to put the clean stuff the shop. The place was stinking buddies ladies happily doing their job and that's how it should be. Although I would always prefer a little cleaner space around the shops selling raw meat. Russian market of Phnom Penh is quite popular for raw/processed meat.
Russian market is one of the popular markets in Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia. I was not sure if I should go there or not but while walking around I realised that it's too close by. And that's when we thought of going inside the market and explore it. That is pretty crowded and it would not be an exaggeration if I say that russian market in Phnom Penh is pretty chaotic as well. But that's the fun when it comes to photography and get a sense about the neighborhood.
I had heard a lot about the non vegetarian raw material sold in Russian market. Above is a photograph of the shop where a lady was selling different kinds of eggs. It was hard for us you know the sources of these eggs from the shapes colours and size.
Hamocks - I call it the national furniture of Cambodia. You find them everywhere - be it a shop, tuk Tuk, a restaurant, a hotel, a hawker on the street : Every place in almost every person use it everyday. In above photograph you can see the shopkeeper taking some rest in her hamock and she was least interested in engaging with potential customers crossing by. This made me think about Indian cities like goa and Kolkata, where people take rest around the noon and you may find that lot of the shops shutdown to ensure that they have their own time without any distraction.
Interestingly if you notice all these photographs, most of the shops are being managed and run by ladies. That somehow is a common thing in Cambodia. Folks travelling with me had different theories around this although I would avoid sharing any of that. Khmer Rouge was one of the commonly talked topic about this discussion.
Although I was most excited about exploring meat shops at Russian market but it offers you a lot more than that. And as a photographer you have plenty of opportunities to play with colours, culture, and some of the Unique things that happen only in Cambodia. During our one week trip to Cambodia we tried all these different looking fruits that is see in the above photograph. Rambutan, Longan, Mangoteen etc were some of the fruits I tried first time. Cambodian fruit like Durian was tasted by Vibha through an ice-cream and none of us liked it.
Cambodia country runs on bikes and all age groups prefer bikes over cars. And Bikes are used for majority of businesses like kiosks, Tuku-tuks etc.
After a quick round of Russian Market we headed to river-side in a Tuk-Tuk and this journey to Cambodia will continue in upcoming posts.
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