Here's a series of photos of some construction that occurred in our old courtyard--which clearly used to be part of the the old food bazaar (vegetable, fruits, a meat seller, rabbit seller, various spices, nuts etc.) this wall backs up on. The first photos show the wall as it was.
The project involved tearing out the first layer of stone blocks and weed trees that had grown into the wall, closing up old windows (into the bazaar) and rebuilding, smoothing, and painting--oh, and making the garbage area much narrower to allow for another car to park there--that made the garbage area so narrow the garbage workers have a time getting in there to the dumpsters...
This next photo reveals the arches that must have once led into what is now our apartment's parking lot. Since our building is at least 80-100 years old, that makes the bazaar probably part of original city infrastructure.
The bazaar is still there, accessible from the street to the left, but the archways that were uncovered when they rebuilt this wall show how the bazaar used to also extend on the side of our courtyard/parking area. It has clearly shrunk from it's hey-dey. Half the stalls go unused. Bazaars further outside the center are still bustling, but when metros went in more than 5 minutes walk away, and rich people in the center started going to grocery stores, I guess this bazaar just wasn't as attractive anymore.
Notice how every night, the workers had to clean up so people could still park there!
This tall building towers above the older buildings. I heard on the news that there are something like 800 tall buildings like this currently under construction in this city. Many in our new neighborhood.
I was most impressed by how the scaffolding seems so insubstantial. Although, compared to the 6-20 story scaffolding they build out of 2 x 4s and framing nails this looks pretty good. They just economize on the standing boards--who needs more than the ones you are working on? And everything is pretty much done--even on major construction projects—without any power tools. Mixing enough concrete for a whole wall is an exercise in extreme patience and arm strength.
See the wet spot on the ground about 10 feet behind the black car? They make a mound of sand, make a volcano crater in the middle, pour some concrete mix in, add water, and then patiently, patiently mix in from the sides round and round with a shovel without letting the water run out until it's all mixed. Then someone shovels some into a bucket and climbs the sidebars of the scaffolding to hand it to the plasterer/mason above. I was actually pretty impressed with this project however--it got done fairly quickly--a few weeks.
See how nice and smooth they are getting it? In the end they painted the whole thing white with a band of gray at the bottom where it might get dirty.
See the green clothesline? It's new! Someone took the opportunity to ask the guys to replace their tatty clothesline while they were up there. I had wondered how they did that. Mostly I just loved the primary colors in this picture. And the fact they were wearing actually helpful work clothes (though you can see they are both wearing flip-flops). Usually even while doing construction men wear nice looking clothes and shoes (like loafers)--and they manage to keep pretty tidy.
Okay--before I start sounding too much more like a Dick and Jane book (See spot run!), I'm signing off. But wait--there's more! We finally got faster internet.
