New Year's Day Flea Market 2010 - Lithuania

Happy New Year! I hope your Christmas was delightful and that Santa brought everything on your list.

I recently came across some photographs I took a couple of years ago when I spent the holidays in Vilnius, Lithuania. I hope you enjoy this Eastern Europe Flea Market.

Even though it was quite cold and lightly snowing, at the crack of dawn vendors began arriving and setting out their wares on the snow covered steps.

These guys looked a little tired. Perhaps they celebrated too much the night before.

I thought that this dealer had the most interesting selection of antiques.



If these brass lights could talk, what stories would they tell? They were quite large, close to three feet in length.

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What an interesting assortment of Soviet-era antiques and collectibles. Very few of the pieces were priced. Because Russian was the only language taught in schools up until 1990, few older Lithuanians spoke English. That's OK, I was content to just look.

These were some of the few dealers who brought furniture. I suspect the snow had something to do with that.

A suitcase filled with binoculars.

Soviet bronze busts. The brush must have been for removing snow. Several of the vendors had them.




I wish these could have come home with me. I can envision the elegant and romantic house where they used to hang.

Lovely carving on this old box.

There were quite a few military items. German WWII knives with sheaves were selling for around $20.

I can just imagine trying to fly home with a grenade in my luggage. As it was, it took us three hours to get through security in Amsterdam on our way back to the U.S.

I really liked these primitives.

And these.

Assorted metalware on an interesting old trunk.

A view of the city. Note the empty champagne bottles on the landing.

Someone brought an old spinning wheel.

I'm not sure how these books were protected from the snow.

Ornate door hardware and odds and ends.

A leftover from New Year's Eve in Vilnius.