Unnoticed Stories, or Journey to the Flea Market. Notes of Dilettantes

Flea markets became popular in Europe in the second half of the 20th century - during the period when the active intervention of the great history with its wars, revolutions and grandiose projects to “improve” a person or society into the space of private life began to be replaced by nostalgia for “good old times”. Meanwhile, “flea markets” became a point where personal narratives are important, the fate of individual things and people - former owners, sellers and buyers converge. The book of Igor and Natalia Narsky is also a personal love story for flea markets and ancient things that gain a new life among the new owners, and the study of this phenomenon as a special environment with their unwritten laws and regional features. The authors talk about the past, present and possible future of such markets that today compete with Internet platforms and share their experience of the keepers of material memory. The book is illustrated by photographs from their family archive.
Igor Narsky - historian, professor of Perm State University, Natalya Narskaya - sociologist