Armenian Market

This guide to the Armenian Market in Yerevan, the covered hall known as GUM, follows the vendors who have shared its counters for decades without treating each other as rivals. You'll meet parsley seller Svetlana Tadevosyan, thirty years at the same spot, cook-turned-trader Hranush Hovsepyan, who arrived when the Soviet Union fell apart, and poultry seller Tamara Kirakosyan, raising birds with her son since she was widowed. The guide asks a simple question about all of them: how a market full of identical stalls selling the same walnuts, lavash and pickled cabbage still lets everyone make a living.