Hello, I'm Shen Dianqi, a traveler who visits all parts of the world and pays attention to Chinese people around the world.

At the sixth stop in Ukraine, I made an unannounced visit to the seven-kilometer market in Odessa.

When it comes to "seven kilometers", almost all Chinese in Ukraine know about it, and most of the more than 3,111 Chinese in Odessa work here.

When Xiao Zhu took me to this market, it was 9 o'clock in the morning, because the market mainly sold stalls in the morning and closed one after another at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Seven Kilometers is the largest commodity distribution and wholesale market in Europe. At its peak, the number of Chinese reached 11,111. Besides Chinese, there are various faces in the market, which are found all over the world.

Xiao Zhu took me to this market and visited an old Chinese in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Everyone called him "Silly Brother". He came to Ukraine in 1993. I will write some stories about him later.

have a bird's eye view of the "seven kilometers" market.

The whole market is made of containers, and some of them have two floors, the first floor is bunks, and the second floor is warehouses.

due to the mixed market, the radio in the market block repeatedly broadcasts warning terms such as "beware of being cheated, beware of pyramid schemes" in Russian. It is enough to see how complicated this market is.

When I raised my camera, I met a lot of shopkeepers on the road who were very wary and asked me what I was doing ... Later I learned that there was a sphere of influence in the local area, and many people in the market might have criminal records ... In short, in this complicated environment, people remain highly alert to the outside world, and I understand very well.

So, I chose the way of unannounced visits. I set the camera to be hidden. Then, I went to the Afghan neighborhood, where there were a large number of Afghan refugees (it was very convenient for them to enter Ukraine directly with refugee cards). Now there are more and more Afghan refugees in Ukraine.

Vietnamese rice noodles in the seven-kilometer market

In addition to China people, there are a large number of Vietnamese people in the seven-kilometer market, so there are authentic Vietnamese rice noodles here. At noon, we ate a Vietnamese rice noodle restaurant, which was delicious, with fresh soup and a large amount of beef. The correct operation is to pour Chili sauce into the dipping dish and dip the beef slices in Chili sauce to eat.

Beef is tender, fat and thin, and delicious. A bowl of beef powder is 81 gerry, which is equivalent to RMB 21 yuan. When he goes back to school in Ukraine, Xiao Zhu misses Asian food and will take a bus from downtown to the seven-kilometer market to eat a bowl of powder.

The owner of the restaurant is very enthusiastic. The first floor of the store is a small supermarket, which sells some Vietnamese food seasonings and so on.

a 29-year-old Chinese "silly brother" in the seven-kilometer market

Xiao Zhu went to the several-kilometer market and helped me find a local old Chinese "silly brother". Xiao Zhu said that the silly brother is very nice, and local students will ask him for help if they need to go through any formalities. He is very enthusiastic.

Silly brother has been in Ukraine for 28 years since 1993. At first, he went to study in a small Ukrainian city along the Dnieper River, and then he has been rooted in Ukraine.

He experienced the Great Depression just after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. He recalled the scene when he first came to Ukraine. The shelves of shopping malls, shops and supermarkets were all empty and nothing could be bought.

But money was easy to earn at that time, because there were many opportunities. Silly brother said that the mechanical pencil they brought from China at that time, Ukrainians were particularly novel and had never seen it. At that time, Ukraine could be said to have no light industrial products.

It was probably in 1995 that goods gradually came in, and this situation was improved.

However, after decades of development, Ukraine's national strength has been "steadily declining", which is a very helpless and not too stinging feeling, just like boiling a frog in warm water, with a little economic decline.

Unannounced visit to seven kilometers of Afghanistan

Because this market is mixed with fish and dragons, I chose hidden photography. The following are precious humanities and social science materials that I recorded in a hidden way.

Old local Chinese told me that the number of Afghans here even exceeds that of Indians and Arabs, and it is increasing. A very important reason is that it is far more convenient for Afghans to come in as refugees than in other ways.

For example, Vietnamese are the most difficult to get a customs card in Ukraine. Many Vietnamese were in the old Soviet era, and some new Vietnamese came in through "buying customs", so it is difficult for most Vietnamese to enter Ukraine.

Afghans, on the other hand, because they are a war country, they directly issued a "refugee card" according to international regulations and came in directly.

This is very close to the Afghan refugee model in Australia, that is, Chinese immigrants to Australia have to pay money to learn language skills. However, when Afghans arrive in Australia, they will be given money in different houses as soon as they get off the plane, and the crime rate is extremely high ...

Many msl countries quickly immigrate to pagan countries through high birth rate, chaotic resources and population overflow, and these methods have successfully spread in pagan countries, which is indeed a successful model.

Six major races in the Seven Kilometers Market

Silly Brother introduced us to the basic situation of this market, which is found all over the world, even including Cambodians ...

The main groups are divided into six categories: 1, China, 2, Vietnamese, 3, Indian, 4, Afghan, 5, Middle Eastern (Syrian, Iranian). Ukrainians

And these six groups of people control different industries:

1, China people are mainly shoes and bags department stores;

2. Vietnamese mainly resell China's goods, as well as money transfer and foreign exchange business;

3, Indians control small household appliances;

4. There are many Afghans, and they are also sold in China.

5. Middle Easterners control textiles and cloth carpets;

6. Ukrainians do everything, mainly retail, or help the top five people to work and look after shops;

We crossed a large sunflower seed field with the Ukrainian flag

, and it suddenly occurred to me that yellow with blue, the Ukrainian flag basically looks like this

Ukrainian flag (Ukrainian: деравнийп??). ни) The flag surface consists of two parallel and equal horizontal rectangles: upper blue and lower yellow. Blue represents the sky and the sea, symbolizing freedom and sovereignty. Yellow stands for wheat fields, symbolizing Ukraine's founding a country by agriculture.

Odessa of 161 nationalities

Odessa is the dirtiest city (mainly the main city) I have ever seen in Ukraine. Compared with other Ukrainian cities, it is very clean, so the downtown of Odessa is particularly dirty.

I put two pictures below, which are in the center of Odessa. I live in this most chaotic place, and there will be beggars and vagrants on the streets, much more than in other cities in Ukraine.

I think one of the reasons is that Odessa is the warmest place in Ukraine, and vagrants who live in the wind and sleep will adapt to some of the climate here.

Later, local Chinese people told me that Odessa has more than 161 ethnic groups. I said that it really doesn't look like a Slavic city, because most Slavic cities I have been to are extremely clean.

Later, I carefully recalled that there were not many Orthodox churches in Odessa these days, but more Catholic churches, various Protestants, mosques ... and Jews were often seen in the streets.

The ethnic groups in Odessa are visible to the naked eye and can be clearly identified: Ukrainians, Jews, Turks, Arabs, China, Vietnamese, blacks,

There are Azerbaijanis, Ecuadoreans in South America, Stan in Central Asia ...

In the 7 km market, there are: Syrians, Indians ...

The immigrants left behind in the former Soviet Union are: Armenia, Georgia ...

The immigrants formed by the history and the Black Sea port trade: Greeks, Arabs ...

Back to the previous article, under such a complicated population structure, Odessa is more diverse, of course.

I will go from Odessa to Lviv tomorrow and start a new journey.

See you next time.