Many tourists come to Gilan – Anzali waterfront to see the Caspian Sea. I did the same originally but then I was far much more attracted by the local market visit experience.

Fish Auction (sss…)

I arrived very early in the morning here. The first thing I saw (no I should said I heard the sound before I saw it) was Fish Auction(sss..) !

With the good geographical location of this market ( very closed to the Caspian sea and Lagoon), fishermen usually first brought their catch of the day to the local fish dealers here in the early morning. Why to the fish dealer? I was told that fishermen couldn’t sell their fish to others except their dedicated fish dealers according to local traditions. This was because usually fishermen borrowed money from the dealer for their fishing boats and equipments so they were obliged to sell to their lender. (Not sure this is the same practice in other counties?). There were more than one fish dealers in this market. They liked to sort out their fish into grous, then started to shout out very loud to attract buyer to surround them to start the auction process.

The dealers would NOT operate their auctions at the same time. They would wait for one dealer getting its deal done and then made noises to attract audience to move from previous corner to the new corner to start another auction. It was really interesting to see such auction happening here and there. As I had a local day guide with me, he was translating what the dealers were saying throughout the process and somehow the translation was very funny.

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Fish Market

After exploring the auction, I continued to walk around the fish market. One thing immediately drew my attention : I found Iranian market were very organised. Every shop owner/ hawker constantly reorganised whatever goods they were selling throughout the day. It’s really good and made it more appealing for the potential buyers :). See the photo below how neatly they were stacked on the booth for buyers to choose.

How interesting to see the logistic chain of fish from the fishermen-> the fish dealers -> fish hawkers. On top of fresh fish, local people will also made preserved fish roe and even dry fish. I didn’t manage to eat the big piece and had no idea how to cook would be the best. But I was super tempted to buy one when I saw the salted fish roe 😛 . See how skilful the show runner with many beautiful rings on hands preserving the fish roe.

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Vegetables, Meat, Local Cheese, Fresh Dates, OLIVES…..

Continued the walk and I quickly entered the local cheese area. Wow they all looked so fresh and beautiful! I was told there were freshly made this morning. And very close to it, I found fresh dates! I mean FRESH DATES! I normally only found dried dates or snack dates embraced by chocolate already. I love so much these fresh dates here

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There are also many kinds of nuts in local market as well as more than 20 types of syrup/viscous blended sauce available for sales. They were either made from wheat, vegetables, nuts, etc that i didn’t know those can make paste.

After that, I turned my head to the opposite side of the same sheet to explore. To my surprise!!!!!, I was so shocked that I saw body parts of goat. Indeed, it’s normal in the market to see goat meat selling. However, as shop runners here were very organised, they also sorted and organised various parts from the goat on the table as below table. I just didn’t expect on one side were nuts and dates, while just turned the head, it was table of goat heads and limbs.

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In the middle of the market street, I found some booths very interesting. See below photo, they looked like garlic , leek and spring onion too. Love so much the pretty green colour and they looked and smelled super fresh! Again, they were well organised on the small booth as if they were decoration of the market. It light up lots of energy to this busy place.

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I then entered the OLIVE zone which we stayed the longest time in the market. I was told that Gilan was famous for producing olives and there were way too many types of olives here. In the photo below you could find my driver and the day guide who were super seriously tasting and picking the olives they love as well as started to negotiate the price. My driver is from Isfahan so he was like a tourist as me when he visited around the north of the country. He did bought two giant bottles of olives as well as two bottles of olive oil for his family. He was super sweet! I personally love olives and these were super fresh here. Look at the colour and you would love to eat them immediately !

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Finally, we became hungry and went to this very famous mini restaurant within the market to try the real local food. The meal we ordered was in fact very simple but they tasted very good. The rice was topped with a burnt rice sheet which was the local special. There were also chicken in plum sauce as well as the nutty sauce to eat with the rice. Indeed, there was a local dry fish to taste here. This was truly a real local experience of a daily life in local market. 🙂

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