Mankind is my business!

Zdravo, this is Allan again.  Adding to the list of things Macedonians do better than the US must include the operating of their small retail shops.  Or, more specifically, fishing for customers in a much more relaxed and social way.  Most businesses in the small towns are small businesses.  Often they are small storefronts that sit beneath apartments or homes and the store is owned and run by the person living above.  So in many cases, it is a very short commute for the store owner.

My shirt shop.  Just opening up.

It is also common that many stores offer the same or very similar items, even if they are in close proximity.  For example, in my 6 minute walk to work, I pass 13 stores that sell either clothes, shoes or clothing accessories.  Now for the fun part.  Owners of these stores, instead of scheming like Scrooge on how they might prevail upon the competition,  appear to take a more relaxed approach to capitalism and coffee is the way this is accomplished.

When the chair appears outside the store it means that they are open.  It is early AM in this shot, before the adjacent shopkeepers set up their own chairs in a retail power-cluster.  

It s a common sight to see store owners sitting outside, drinking coffee, smoking and chatting with the adjacent store owner for long periods.  The coffee is always in real cups, no insipid plastic is allowed.  Local cafes are kept busy supplying these small groups with coffee, and waiters can be seen carrying trays of coffee down the street to a group of owners who are discussing kids, family, politics - pretty much anything but business.  They have the time as there are relatively few customers.  Should a customer appear and disrupt this reverie, the store owner will take a temporary leave and come into the store.  At times the store keepers are in the group across the street, so it is not always easy to figure out where the person is that can help.  It is not unusual for a store to go out of business.  Should that happen, the windows are covered over with newspaper, painters work like crazed monkeys, and voila! - - a new store opens usually selling the same things, and the cycle resumes.

OK, the gathering has begun.  The owners of these 3 adjacent women's clothing stores have staked out their spots.  Actually, the last store with the brown door is my barber.  He walks to get his own coffee and does not keep up with women's fashions.

So I think that this coffee-fueled form of capitalism is far superior to our own version.  The small town MAK approach of drinking coffee and socializing until the money is all gone really is more civil.  If, for some reason, a shop should close, there is another one next door where the coffee is hot, the goods wait patiently for purchase, and the shop-

keepers keep up with all the news.  I like this method, and we know all the shopkeepers.  You need to come over for coffee, and perhaps a shirt.  Ciao - - Al