Bezesteni

Nowadays, the indoor part of Bezesteni, Thessaloniki’s bedesten market, mostly hosts stores selling textiles and clothing materials, as well as a print shop, while the stores adjacent to the exterior of Bezesteni, whose window displays face the main streets of the historic centre,  sell jewellery, underwear, tobacco products, eyewear, and embroidered fabrics,

According to N., owner of a tailoring workshop in the historic city centre, customer traffic to Bezesteni has significantly dwindled over the last two decades. Therefore, N. says, ‘the commercial character of Bezesteni has changed over the last fifteen to twenty years. It remains a commercial space, but it attracts far fewer customers. People used to wait in lines in order to buy goods that were not sold anywhere else in Thessaloniki, like shiny floss threads made from a cotton-silk blend, amazing for embroidery. Bezesteni used to be known as a wholesale and retail market, but as we all know, wholesale trade in Thessaloniki has dramatically decreased. As a result, some stores changed owners, while some other small stores inside Bezesteni have merged into a larger department store […]’.