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Tolkytchka: The Soviets' Underground Free Market
| Article
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12935 |
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Section : |
Culture
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1987 |
2,359 Words |
| Author
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R.I. Hoxsie
R.I. Hoxsie is a social scientist and freelance author and
photographer. |
While visiting Turkmenistan in Soviet central Asia, I noticed Turkmen women wearing traditional silver and gold jewelry. In search of similar items for gifts, I could only find recently made replica jewelry constructed out of metal alloy. The designs were traditional but the metal was not. I visited jewelry shops and the bazaars, but to no avail. Bazaars in Central Asia are marketplaces for the sale of fruits, vegetables, spices, tools, and household items. No Turkmen jewelry was to be found.
One day, out of frustration, I asked a Turkmen woman working in a souvenir shop where I could buy such jewelry. "Tolkytchka," she replied. However, when I asked some Russians about tolkytchka, their initial response was one of denial. "I don't know what you are talking about." When I persisted, they asked where I had heard about it. When my questions continued, they told me that tolkytchka no longer exists. The truth is that most Russians are hesitant to talk about tolkytchka with a foreigner. In contrast, Turkmen people are not reluctant to discuss it.
Tolkytchka is a Russian slang word which means "elbow jostling" or "elbow rubbing." It comes from the verb tolkatb meaning "to jostle" or "to shove." Today, tolkytchka refers to a certain type of market in the Soviet Union, where one can sell used or new items, on a free market basis, getting for one's goods whatever price the market will bear. Such markets exist in different forms throughout the country, despite the fact that they are frowned upon by the authorities. While never advertised, the word somehow gets around about where and when a tolkytchka will take place. Much of the time they take place in the same location, but at irregular intervals.
While tolkytchkas are known to exist, and in some cases are tolerated as local officials look the other way, they are not the kind of markets Soviet officials care to expose to foreign visitors.
There is a degree of fear associated with tolkytchkas. People frequent them under the threat of a police raid and possible arrest. It is not so much the marketplace itself that the government opposes as the spekylyatsia (profiteering) that occurs at the tolkytchka. I once visited a tolkytchka in a Central Asian city where I was initially mistaken for a police agent. When I entered the neighborhood where only women had gathered, carrying small packages wrapped in paper under their arms, they dispersed quickly in order to avoid problems with the authorities. After a few words were exchanged, they cautiously returned to their places to resume their
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