Shopping in Yugoslavia #1of2

In the marketplace near Budva we found copper pots for sale by some Gypsies. We dickered and dickered on the price. They would get confused by the at-that-time rapidly changing inflation rate, then start over and dicker some more. Finally we bought three nice copper items, for a total of about 180,000 dinar (about $12.50), a very good price for what ever it is. The postage to send them to California cost much more.

In Pula, after Emmy cried with joy when she found her favorite Jonathan apples, the young man sent her around the corner to his brother’s market stand, and indicated those apples would be better. We got the impression the first brother was selling for the government, and his brother had saved the best apples to sell as private enterprise.

Emmy stopped in a jewelry store in Dubrovnik, and priced an attractive silver ring. A few minutes later, when she decided to buy, the original clerk was gone, and store manager was shocked. The ring is a “national treasure,” for display only, and not for sale at any price, but would cost well over $300 if it were. If Emmy had paid the originally asked $15, she would always think it was a $15 ring, not a $300 ring, if it really was.

Emmy liked the brass containers they used to weigh the fruit in outdoor markets from Dubrovnik to Split to Zagreb to Ljubljana to the island of Hvar, and all over Yugoslavia. We asked at each market, and they looked at us like we were crazy. Finally at the market along Starigard’s harbor, on the island of Hvar, we bought one. Whoops, a few minutes later the man came to the camper (we were having lunch) and asked for it back. He would be out of business for the rest of the day, and he just didn’t want to sell anyway. But a young man at a market stall in Split sold us one for $25 in US dollars. It has been used as an unusual flower pot, ever since. We tried to buy a brass scoop each visit to Yugoslavia, so it only took four trips over ten years. Of course it’s worth the effort, and it was fun.

The shoeshine man in Split, Yugoslavia, said he was a capitalist, and had six bambinos at home. As he tied my shoes, one lace broke. He replaced the lace and I said that was how he made his money. When I asked how much for laces and shine, he said $50, then wrote 700 dinar. I paid 1000 dinar, about $3. That may have been a few hour’s pay.