The Women of “Bazaarastan”

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The buses running between Istanbul and Yerevan arrive once a week. Since the border between Turkey and Armenia continues to be shut, the journey goes through Georgia. It takes at least 36 hours to arrive and 36 hours to be free from “being” anything. It’s the best part of any trip, when you’re temporarily detached from your meticulously curated social identity and simply a passenger. It’s an illusion of total freedom, an enjoyable sense of un-belonging where you can stay for a while, before stepping into any form of social certainty. 

It was evening when we entered the customs office in Georgia at the Turkish border for the police to inspect the luggage of all the passengers on our bus. Buses like this typically carry two groups of people: Armenian tourists eager to visit the historical lands in Turkey, which Armenians refer to as Western Armenia, and another group heading to Turkey for various types of work. Unofficial estimates suggest that between 10,000 and 20,000 Armenian migrants work in Turkey without the required permits, the majority of whom are women. Many of these women work in markets, buying inexpensive clothes in Turkey and selling them at higher prices in Armenia. They are known by locals as “bazarchis.”

This bus was filled with bazaarchi women and all of us were now standing in the airless customs office, wondering when we would go back to our bus and finally move. Some of the passengers started arguing. I’ve read that heat triggers aggression, but this was different. Apparently, one of the few men on the bus made a derogatory comment about one of the women on the bus, saying that she worked as a prostitute. A bazaarchi woman, the one with the youngest-looking face and most tired eyes, was protecting her. 

I looked indifferently at the faces of the women, trying to detect who the prostitute was while trying to hide my curiosity. There were five women, one, apparently the most mature, had gorgeous natural silverish-gray hair, tied in a ponytail. She wore round glasses on thin frames and a wrap dress with weird floral prints. The other one was a curvy woman probably in her forties, with yellowish-bleached hair and red lipstick which had faded from the unbearable heat just like my patience. Another woman, with a more voluptuous body, bright red hair, and a velvet training suit with the word “Angel” in rhinestones written on her chest, was standing near me. She had one of those ageless faces that could belong to any generation and any century. While my eyes were slowly gazing over every face, the young woman, defending the mysterious prostitute, moved closer to me, took my hand and said, “Come, sit on our side of the bus, we don’t judge what you do for a living. We’re not like these anasuns (animals)!” She threw a threatening look at the men, who immediately hid their faces, looking down, maybe as a sign of regret. 

Only then did I realize that the “mysterious prostitute” causing the argument was me. For a moment I was thrown into self-doubt, thinking that I had taken some weird quantum leap, and was experiencing a possible other life of mine. But before I jumped into analysis, this girl pulled my hand and we walked together to the bus. We sat close to each other in the front of the bus with the other women. The men settled at the back, quickly assuming the most comfortable positions for sleeping. Some removed their shoes and made themselves as cozy as possible, even bringing pillows from home. It felt strange, like being a voyeur peering into their intimate space. The women were more active. They all sat in their places and once the bus moved, they brought out coffee, sweets, and all types of food you would never imagine seeing on a bus from their bags. I only had dried fruits with me, so I took them out offering them, just like they were offering me their cakes, biscuits, fruits and candies. The young girl defending me took one piece and started the conversation. She said she’s been working here for three years and wanted to know about me.

I immediately introduced myself, not losing the chance to note that I was here just to find something to write about. They looked a bit disappointed that I wasn’t a prostitute, but then the one with silver hair said, “Oh, that’s why you were taking notes all the time! We thought it was just a diary.”

All the women on the bus started laughing so loudly that the men at the back of the bus woke up for a moment, then faded again into their usual road sleep. 

The woman with the bleached hair tried to explain herself: “You see, buses like this are usually promoted as touristic, but in reality, mostly working women, the girls from bazaars and… other working women travel on these. We are the girls from bazaars and we didn’t know you, so we thought you are… from the other girls. Plus you’re dressed strangely, we don’t dress that way.”

I looked at my oversized cinnamon-colored pantsuit, thinking I should wear something else next time. She continued: “These tickets cost just $100 US. Traveling by plane is $700 …plus on the bus, we are allowed to carry more kilos of stuff, it is very comfortable because we buy many things there and then sell them…anyway so sorry if we offended you!”

I smiled, saying it was okay, she continued: “…But… if you were to be one, you’d be like Julia Roberts in ‘Pretty Woman’…she was nice, right?”

All the women on the bus agreed in such an uplifting way, that I felt their sincere love towards “Pretty Woman”. Though my subconsciousness was almost ready to make its way for new trauma, I chose to accept the compliment.

“So what are you going to write about?” asked the one with “Angel” written on her chest. She had just taken off her shoes and was sitting with her feet up in funny socks with sparkling polka dots. 

I told her I didn’t really know, that I was searching for something to grab my attention.

“Oh, there’s nothing to write about. Our life isn’t interesting! And we pay taxes! Please note this wherever you need to,” said the young woman with the baby face sitting near me. “Riding 36 hours on a bus, without moving…we may do this several times a week, if we need more apranq. Our luggage is very heavy. What else can I say? Yes, it’s ruining our health. We can’t find any other job that can help us earn so much money. Plus you know, in Istanbul I feel so good, I feel so alive and there are so many places to have fun.”

By the time the older one spoke, I was forced to eat homemade strawberry cake given to me by the red-haired woman, thanking God it hadn’t spoiled during the journey. The other woman with blueish hair made black coffee for us in a portable coffee maker, so we could all have some while chatting.

“I have a story for you…write about our Ruzan!” said the gray-haired woman, breaking the silence. The women on the bus got active and I could hear their approving voices. I was intrigued to know more.

“First we thought she was a new bazaarchi, because she looked like us …simple, nothing extraordinary, I can’t even say if she was beautiful or not. How shall I explain it…she was so frightened and so down, that even if she was the most beautiful woman in the world, no one would see it…” she said, taking a pause and a breath and continued. “It was Ruzan, a young, 33 year old woman from a village. God, she was so pale, so shy, but we could feel she was hungry, by how she was staring at us eating. She was too shy to ask for anything. So we offered…almost forced her to eat.” She took a sip of water and continued the story.

“On the road, while we were having our usual sandwiches, which you, by the way, refused to eat and it really offended us,” she deliberately stopped to give me a second to apologize and continued. “She finally relaxed a bit and opened up. She told us that she is going to Turkey for work. She said her husband had left for Russia for a job and never came back, never even called. So, she was the lone provider for her entire family. She found work with her friend Anush. Work as prostitutes. I don’t know who Anush is, nor if there was someone like that on our bus, apparently they were traveling separately. I have no idea how they found that work and who was in charge of them. But she said she will later go to Trabzon.” 

She stopped again, this time to take a sip from her black coffee, provided by the red-haired woman listening to her with so much attention as if she was hearing the story for the first time. The other woman, whom I tagged in my mind as “Angel ” continued: “You know, people who choose this bus are people with no money, it’s cheap. But …nothing cheap is really cheap.” She dramatically paused to take a huge sip of her coffee, chucking the desert in her mouth. 

The gray-haired woman, who was the most eloquent speaker among them and obviously their unspoken leader, continued: “Our poor baby Ruzan arrived in Turkey. Some of us already knew what may happen to her there, we’ve heard so many stories. We were trying to take a moment, speak to Ruzan and tell her that we could try to help, find another solution, find her some job but I guess whoever was in charge of her had already somehow taken her will and Ruzan had just…surrendered to the flow of events. It was horrible…she didn’t even try to resist.” She stopped, obviously remembering Ruzan. The red-haired woman took a napkin and dried her tears, sipping from her coffee again so loudly that I thought it was a gesture to burn the emotions that were choking her. She made a sign letting the gray-haired woman know that she wanted to say something. 

In a trembling voice, she said: “When we arrived in Istanbul…it was evening, 8 o’clock. She said goodbye to us, I gave her my strawberry cake for the road…she hugged me and burst into tears. Manush told her to not go.” She pointed to the gray-haired woman and now, finally, I knew her name. The red-haired woman continued, “She asked her to stay with us, so that we can protect her. Ruzan smiled, but it was such an unhappy smile. She just turned around and walked away. We later heard that she and her friend Anush were under the supervision of a Turkish man and his lover, worked in Trabzon and later Konya …you know Konya, che?”

I nodded, though I didn’t know what she meant and what exactly I needed to know about Konya. All I knew was that it was the final home of Rumi. And for me it was always the city of whirling dervishes, but now I’ll also remember it as the city where someone named Ruzan stepped into a life of prostitution. 

The bus fell silent. All the women froze in their memories and only the younger woman sitting near me who was now putting on blue nail polish, looked indifferent. I could not tell whether she knew Ruzan and if she was a relatively new bazaarchi.

Meanwhile, Manush continued: “Ruzan stayed there and soon was assigned to find  new girls. So she called someone she knew. A waitress in a local store, she was divorced and living in poverty. So Ruzan thought she was a great candidate. She just told the girl she has a ‘good job with a good salary.’ I have no idea how she managed to engage this girl without any details and encourage her to leave the small city in Armenia and go to Turkey. Anyway, this girl appeared in Turkey and when she reached her room, that’s where she learned that she was hired as a prostitute and couldn’t go back unless she paid for the trip or worked to pay it off. So, she spent around 20 days there and then somehow escaped, and she returned with our bus. She came to the bus station and asked us to pay for her ticket and promised to pay it back once she arrives home. We paid for her ticket, telling her there was no need for repayment. We wanted to ask her so many things, but she was silent and just slept the whole way as if she was protected in her sleep. When we arrived, she sat in a taxi and I think went straight to the police station. Ruzan was caught. She is in jail now. We kept communicating with her. She was telling us stories from jail. God, what kind of women were there! All harassed, beaten down by their destiny…”

“For example…she had a friend there. You know what she was taken for?” While I was trying to understand whether or not this was a rhetorical question, the young woman blowing on her nails intervened. So she had heard this story too, many times.

“She killed her husband, mutilated him, ground up his body, cooked it as cutlets, and served it to his parents.”

I was shocked by the unexpectedness of this statement and just started coughing as if I was the one eating those cutlets. I couldn’t believe my ears. 

“Sorry, honey. But this is what Ruzan told us…and she never lies…just gossips,”
she apologized cynically, blowing on her nails to dry them.

“Yeah, never lies, only gossips and exaggerates” I thought to myself and just shut my mouth, because I wasn’t ready for more stories.

The bus fell silent again until Manush interrupted it, speaking to me.“

So will you write about Ruzan?”

I nodded my head. 

“What will you call the story about our Ruzan?” asked the youngest one, now enjoying the look of her cobalt blue nails.

I responded and said that from the moment I entered the bus, I wanted to write something titled “Bazaarastan”. Everyone started laughing.

Manush interrupted the laughter: “Once one of our presidents said in an interview that the Armenian women going to work in Turkey are not his citizens and should be ashamed of what they do because they bring profits to our enemies. I was so offended when I read it.”

“See he was right, now you know you’re from Bazarastan,” said the young woman laughing as she was doing an Instagram story with her blue nails and picking the right music for them, adding “a tax-free shame-free zone.”

We stayed silent for a while until some of us fell asleep. I woke up to the voice of the driver announcing that we would arrive in eight hours. The bus again embraced the silence that was filled with the grief of losing those moments of total freedom and relative anonymity. We all knew that once we step off this bus we’ll have to again become what we were, bearing our social titles and names and destinies.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the women.

By the same author

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