I have visited Samgori market for months now, making new photos every week and distributing photos from the previous week. As I don’t speak Georgian nor Russian I can’t have proper conversations. This has become frustrating. Therefore, I now go with an interpreter to collect some stories. Salomé is my ears and my voice and, thanks to her help, the project is entering a new dimension.

It’s 8h30 in the morning and I meet with Salomé outside Samgori metro station. She has just finished her studies at the university and already has a full time job. But she works afternoons so she is available in the morning. I brief her on what I do, my expectations regarding her contribution, and we start our tour. Salomé lives close by but she discovers areas of the market she had never suspected and meets people she had never encountered.

I guess she is kind of surprised of what she is getting into when we start receiving gifts from people I photograph. She ends up with bags of fruits and vegetables and a couple of bouquets of flowers. Obviously the people also have had questions for some time and the one which keeps coming up is: “What is he doing here?”. So Salomé patiently and repeatedly explains my project. Now that we can talk I understand how significant my weekly visits have become for the people of Samgori. “He is our photographer” as someone explains. So far I could only measure the impact of my photos through smiles and other expressions of gratitude but now they can tell what it is to them. An old lady explains she has asked her children to use the portrait I made of her on the gravestone when she will pass away. These are emotional moments.

Salomé carries the album and I can focus more on making photos. Sometimes, she identifies someone before me but Salomé never gives a picture herself, instead she hands me the album. She fully understands the significance of that particular moment when I deliver the picture.

Thanks to her constant kindness, Salomé is immediately adopted by all.
She is as comfortable talking with Jujuma, a coffee vendor who used to be a skier, as she is at seating with domino players from Armenia who, for most of them, have spent their entire life in Tbilisi but hardly speak Georgian. Hopefully everybody speaks Russian thanks to common history.

I’m curious about elders views on the past century, on the Soviet era and the disintegration of the Communist block, and how it has affected dramatically people’s life in the region. We meet and talk with people like Nikolaï, 91 years old, who sells some second (third ?) hand stuff at the flea market. Retired people have small pensions in Georgia, elders struggle and can be seen working at the market even at an advanced age, sometimes very advanced.

Nikolaï started working in a military airplane factory when he was 14 years old in 1940. He had been very busy the next five years… Nikolaï worked for 70 years in the same factory, and retired when he was 84. Yes, 84, we asked twice! Now he comes to the flea market to supplement his meager monthly pension of 220 Lari (about 90 US$). He comes also to get out of his apartment and to socialize since his wife passed away two years ago. He has four children and one works as an economist in a bank in Tbilisi. His two sons and two daughters have given him eleven grand-children. At 91, he has a cigarette with me.

When it comes to photography, Salomé is like my shadow. She always stands behind to make sure she is not unintentionally in the frame of my camera. I sometime play with that, using reflections.

Today Salomé and I are going to Samgori market to deliver the last batch of photos and say goodbye before summer break. Salomé participated in a contest a few months back and she has been selected for a trip to France with all costs covered. She is going in a few days. I don’t feel like going to the market while Salomé is away. My eyes are not enough when I visit now, I need to hear the voices of Samgori market.

See more photos of Samgori market

Read my first post about Samgori market

Olivier Jammes

Stories

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Voices of Samgori market