The junk seller at Chor Minor. Happy memories through rose tinted glasses.

Is it really junk? they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I wandered around a shop full of vintage memorabilia, relevant and real.

Something in my eyes more enjoyable than walking round a dreary museum looking at stuff from 100's, 1'000's of years or more ago, in their little glass cases, or hung from a wall.

What about the dreary Mona Lisa, who cares? I shall let the luvvies froth at the mouth as they go apoplectic about whatever it is they see. Valued at $1 billion as of 2023. Obscene and irrelevant. The Emperor's new clothes.

Rant over come see some cheap as chips beauty.

Watches

Though enquiring with the shop owner cheap is not the word being used prices varied from between £100 to £200. EACH.

The Molnija clock factory in Chelyabinsk manufactured watches and clocks from 1947-2007. The main customer was then the Soviet Union Department of Defence, providing them with wristwatches and pocket watches

A small tribute to the greatest spaceman ever. Yuri Gagarin.

I wanted this, I offered $20 they wanted $100, yeah that's right fleece the tourists. I went to $50. They wouldn't budge. Yuri, ya aint coming to Wales.

Fuck em.

A right old assortment, pins, badges and medals, sparked distant memories

I still have fleeting memories and images locked in my head of the first time I visited Russia; as a student back in the 70's. It started a lifelong interest in all things Soviet. It was a different world to Wales. It wasn't so much the grand buildings like the Hermitage in Leningrad or Basil's on Red Square. It was the little things I loved, the brutal architecture, the old women picks and shovels in hand digging the streets, the queue at the vodka stalls, the weird cigarettes, half tobacco half cardboard tube. Rose tinted glasses.

Strange little cubicles in the streets and parks selling a vast, vast array of brightly coloured and enamelled pin badges. I bought many of them and with my photographs, kept them as treasured memories. Until my wife in some stupid petulant strop threw them out one day when I was at work. I never ever forgave her for that.

One could say I was orgasmic, standing staring looking at these displays, transported back to those heady days, I remember losing my virginity to strong alcohol, getting absolutely wasted on Russian vodka on the overnight train from Leningrad to Moscow, smoking those fags just soaking it up, falling in love.

The food was shit.

_{Thanks for visiting my page, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. this is Stephen aka, @grindle, happily retired, travelling the world snapping away. My weapon of choice is currently a Nikon Z6(2). Unless stated all images are shot by me (©@grindle) all text is mine, based on various info sources. NOT AI generated. If you like my blog, it would be very much appreciated if you upvote and follow me. Also please feel free to drop a comment.}

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