If you have a craving for greek wine near Monastiraki Big Bazzar, you have two choices. You either pay twenty euros in a bar for a mediocre wine that tastes like an apology, or you buy an excellent bottle to take home. The second option is great—provided you have an opener. I didn’t.
I headed down to the pubs beneath the market, bottle in hand, fueled by a belief in the international solidarity of waiters. No way. Everyone looked at me like a man trying to bypass the system. They didn’t have an opener. Or they did, and they didn’t want to share. Greek waiters despise your self-sufficiency. It looks suspicious.
And so, I remembered the Big Bazaar.
Big Bazaar vs. Ifestou Street
Right across from the fish market in Monastiraki, on the corner of Athenas and Aristogitonos St., you’ll find one of Greece’s most bizarre bazaars: Big Bazaar. Before the building, you’re greeted by a forty-meter-long wall of piled-up things, layered three meters high. But don’t mistake this for the former flea market on Ifestou Street, which is now more of a commercial tourist trap filled with Aliexpress-style trinkets, towels, umbrellas, magnets, and “I ❤️ Athens” kitsch.
Big Bazaar has an entirely different energy. Keychains—thousands of them. Each one opens something that no longer exists. Whisks, old rings, coins, shovels, photos, stamps, knives, vintage cameras, needles, trays, cutlery, plates, bridles, stools, alarm clocks without hands, hands without clocks. Guitars that remember three chords and a breakup…
Above it all, a sign: Everything you need, you will find inside.
That’s a threat, not a slogan.
Back to the Story
I stand before the Big Bazaar, scanning for a corkscrew. The owner and two clerks stand outside in silence, watching to see who gets sucked in. You squeeze inside just barely. Narrow alleys are carved between thousands of objects that have long forgotten the last time a human hand touched them. To walk through, you must suck in your gut and surrender your dignity.
I enter. Silence. Not ordinary silence. A thick, unnatural silence that sticks to your ears. Among the items, there’s a faint clinking, the whisper of metal against metal. As if the objects were exchanging experiences about their former owners. Outside, the market roars—fish, scooters, tourists—but here, nothing. Just the quiet whisper of forgotten and lonely things.
When I walked in, I felt as if I had crossed a membrane. Something clinked in the back. Maybe a spoon. Maybe a tooth. Some sort of inter-dimensional rift where forgotten things fall. I realized they don’t just sell old things here. Everything that is no longer needed gathers here. And when you stop feeling needed, you start belonging here, too.
Deeper inside
The deeper I venture, the more the millions of pieces of junk turn into a living organism. I am no longer a tourist. I am potential inventory.
Yesterday, I noticed that young, handsome Greek women looked at me with a certain indifference. Instead of an admiring glance, they politely gave up their seat for me on the metro. But this Big Bazaar? It watched me differently. It evaluated me. Like an object. Perhaps I belong to it.
I begin to understand that nothing is sold here. Uselessness is archived here. The deeper I go, the less I remember why I came. The stairs to the upper floor are lined with hundreds of paintings, figurines, and candlesticks. They all belonged to someone. They all have a story. A trumpet. Face next to face. Statuettes without arms. Arms without bodies. Unknown names, unknown fates. Some eyes look at me far too consciously. Am I alone? I felt this once before in old Thessaloniki.
I’d rather step outside for a moment.
Second Attempt
I return once more. No longer for the corkscrew, but because something was left unsaid. I look at those stairs leading up. Not many people go there. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the owner appears. He stands at the foot of the stairs, smiling the way someone smiles when they know more about you than you do.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t go up there,” the owner suggests. “I need an opener,” I say, pointing to the bottle in my hand, as if it explained everything.
He smiles in a way that makes me wonder if he’s laughing at me or with me. He gently nudges me toward a basket containing hundreds of knives. Every second one has a corkscrew. “Pick one.” I choose one. It’s heavier than it looks. It has a dark wood handle and wobbles slightly. “How much?” “For you? One euro.”
That “for you” sounds like a diagnosis. My head begins to spin. Back in my room, I sit on the bed. I carefully twist the corkscrew. Crack. It snaps before I even get it into the cork. I stare at it for a moment. Then I burst out laughing. Of course. It knows I have to go back.
Third Attempt
The third time, I don’t go for the opener. I go for an answer. There is even less light inside than before. Or are there more things? Hard to tell. In the back, I discover a massive drawer, wide as a bed. It’s open and filled with old photographs.
Thousands of faces. Men, women, children, weddings, funerals, seaside holidays. On the back, names. Dates. Brief notes. “Nikos – always late.” “Eleni – sang while cooking.” “Giorgos – believed he could still turn it around.” When I touch one photograph, the image moves. Not physically. Mentally.
Suddenly, I’m standing on a balcony in 1978. I smell cigarettes and the sea. I hear a voice explaining why he left for Germany. Another photo. A small shoe shop. A man tells me he was afraid of supermarkets. Every photograph is a gateway to another life. Every story pulls me a bit deeper. “Don’t take too long choosing,” a voice echoes in my head. “Why?” “You’ll start to blend in.”
I realize some photos are blank. Just a frame and a caption. One of them bears a name: “Pavel in Athens.” I quickly grab another corkscrew and try to leave. But the aisles are changing. The mirrors reflect me with a slight delay. One reflects me like a painting in a frame. For a moment, I don’t move. Someone stops beside me and inspects the price tag.
I feel a pressure. As if I’m becoming denser. As if I’m becoming a thing. Suddenly, a terrifying but absurdly logical thought strikes me: maybe you can leave physically. But mentally? Never.
Epilogue
I don’t know how I got back to my room. I’m sitting on the bed, holding a bottle of wine and a new knife with a corkscrew. I have no idea when I bought it. I look at the table. On the table, an empty bottle, a bowl of olive pits, a piece of bread, half-eaten cheese… There are also several old knives with corkscrews on the table that I never bought. Their fate is to remain in Athens. I can’t take them on the plane.
It takes a moment for it to sink in. The bottle I’m holding is already the second one. Relieved, I laugh out loud. Genuinely. Later, while brushing my teeth, I notice I’m wearing a T-shirt with a €1 price tag and a significantly faded print: I’m not old and useless yet. I ❤️ Big Bazaar.
Maybe Big Bazaar isn’t pulling me into its inventory just yet. Maybe it’s just testing me, and I don’t belong in the scrap heap quite yet. Or it wasn’t magic—just a high-quality Greek psychosis fueled by good wine and a lack of oxygen among those piles of junk.
But as I went to bed, I could have sworn I heard a faint rustling from the hallway. As if someone were sliding something under my door. Perhaps a photo from Athens and a story with my name and a corkscrew.
