WARSAW (dpa) – In the chill of twilight, thousands of traders clamber around the derelict ramparts of Warsaw’s Decade Stadium to perform the daily ritual of unfurling their colourful stalls.
The stands are crammed with everything from power tools and pirated state-of-the-art computer software to the odd Russian Army Kalashnikov – given the “right” connections.Since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe over a decade ago, Warsaw’s “Russian Market” – named for the throngs of traders who poured in from the East after 1989 – has gained a certain notoriety for dealing in all kinds of goods, both legal and contraband and at rock-bottom prices.Located on the ramshackle east bank of the mighty Vistula river, the sprawling marketplace has also become an icon of “poor man’s” emerging-market capitalism in Eastern Europe – a far cry from the yuppified, sleek skyscrapers housing newly-installed Western multinationals and the manicured elegance of government buildings on Warsaw’s prospering west-side.It’s Sunday and the best day of the week for business.Stalls are overflowing with everything from flashy sportswear to CDs, satisfying musical tastes from Britney Spears to Pavarotti for under three dollars apiece. Blockbuster DVDs lie higgledy-piggledy next to Russian Orthodox icons of the Virgin Mary, bronze busts of blithely smiling Lenins, Nazi memorabilia and hunting knives so large even Crocodile Dundee would cringe at the sight.As the number of Russian traders diminished following the 1998 economic downturn in the former Soviet Union, traders from Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Asia and Africa have moved in to fill the gap along side perennial traders from Ukraine, Lithuania and Belarus.In an part of the market nicknamed “Little Hanoi” the aroma of Asian cookery instantly transports bargain hunters from the heart of Europe to Asia. Diminutive Vietnamese ladies in conical-shaped bamboo hats drag a host of tasty treats and steaming vats of rice to a myriad of haggling vendors and shoppers.Elsewhere, Justin from Nigeria towers over his modest table laden with discount-priced brand-name jeans, graciously serving clients in sonorous, impeccable Polish.Like many with stalls along the crown of the stadium he is new to wheeling and dealing. After three years of studies in Warsaw Justin is now a qualified architect but says a “real job” is hard to come by. The business of selling jeans could be better he says, but it pays the bills.Nearby, Steve from Senegal arrived in Poland a year ago and for the last six months has been selling fashionable tracksuits for a quarter of the retail price in exclusive boutiques.“I do business here just like Clinton,” he says with a flash of irony, referring to recent news that former U.S. president Bill Clinton banked 100,000 dollars giving a one-hour lecture on globalisation to Warsaw businessmen and politicians without worrying about the formality of securing a work permit.“He can come whenever he wants, stay as long as he likes and earn big money – It’s different for us,” says Steve, involved in a never- ending game of cat and mouse with the local police hunting down illegal traders and counterfeit merchandise.“They’re coming, they’re coming,” hisses a wiry young man racing past stalls – an early warning system for vendors to stow-away any contraband before customs agents and police swoop-in for a routine raid.Officials say Poland’s state treasury loses millions of dollars in unpaid sales and customs taxes each year.Additional millions in sales are lost by brand-name producers to the market’s thriving trade in counterfeit hi-tech, alcohol, tobacco and textile goods, 60-70 per cent of which are surreptitiously smuggled in across Poland’s eastern border by Ukrainian, Armenian and Turkish gangs.“It’s a headache,” complains Jacek Wojciechowski, Police Commander for Warsaw’s Praga South district responsible for policing the market with limited manpower.His precinct is overflowing with confiscated “evidence” in the form of pirated CD’s and CD ROMs seized in raids. But, Wojciechowski admits that outdated regulations mean most foreign vendors dealing in counterfeit goods can walk away without so much as a slap on the wrist.His officers have confiscated nearly 500,000 CDs and thousands of CD ROMs over the past three years, not to mention huge amounts of alcohol and millions of cigarettes. “We get a steamroller out every once in a while to crush the materials when we need to clear our storerooms,” he says.But Ryszard Rybakowski, President of the “Damis” company which runs the unwieldy market and rents space to traders, boasts of its economic virtues.Although turnover dropped last year to 650 million dollars from a whopping near billion in its heyday in 1997, Rybakowski says the 20,000 jobs generated by the market are not to be taken for granted. Poland’s jobless rate recently hit a five-year high and currently hovers at 16 per cent – nearly twice the European Union average.He also has big dreams for the future of the Decade Stadium – originally built in 1955 as a landmark to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Communist Poland. Rybakowski is lobbying Poland’s Sports Ministry and Warsaw official to support plans to restore the stadium’s sporting glory.A coliseum for a new era, he says, but one surrounded by a vast maze of market pavilions where trade would continue in a more “civilised” fashion.By two o’clock on Sunday business winds-up in the “Russian Market”. Cleaners wielding large homemade brooms move in to sweep-up the debris of another day’s trade.
