Gianluca Pardelli is an Italian born photographer who spent the last couple of years photographing marketplaces in areas rarely visited by Westerners. He moved through regions which, a few decades earlier, were under Soviet rule. He travelled from Azerbaijan to Uzbekistan, Moldova to Georgia, stopping at markets in each town he visited.
Pardelli believes you can learn a lot about a country by their marketplaces. Not only do you get to see what foods they enjoy as a culture, but you get to watch them share gossip and spend time together.
Russia has a myriad of cultures at its fringes. From Mongolia to North Korea, to Finland, the people that meet its borders are varied and fascinating. Pardelli attempts to document this intriguing fusion of humanity which meets at the crossroads of East and West.
Markets in the former Soviet Union are a very curious mix of different cultural flavours. They can’t be defined as European or Asian. They are neither exotic nor familiar for the Western traveller. They are somewhat reminiscent of eastern Europe before the Second World War, mixed with a bit of Arab and Jewish souk and a touch of Turkish bazaar.
As a photojournalist, Pardelli took some fascinating pictures along the way:
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