From engineer to street vendor…

She sits and sells sweets at the entrance to a building on Rustaveli Avenue in Tbilisi.

She has a stout body and face, with large eyes and silver hair. She is 50-year-old Nana Barsmanshvili, a private street vendor. 

She says that this work is not interesting, although she finds it easy to sit and sell goods —chewing gum, cakes, sweets, French fries or pop-corn which her boss brought from the Railway Station Bazaar. 

But she says it is hard for her to spend all night at work. She works 24 hours straight, and then takes off for two days. She earns 10 lari per working day.

She graduated from the chemistry faculty of Georgian Technical Institute (GTI) and then worked as an engineer for a chemistry factory. But the factory was closed in 1992. Barsmanshvili has worked as a vendor since then. She says she did not look much for work at that time. She applied for one or two jobs, but after getting negative responses, she gave up.

She said that she is ashamed to introduce herself.

“I graduated from weighty faculty, but I work here now,” she said. Now, she said, she cannot find work because the jobs are only for younger people. No one wants to employ a 50-year-old woman. 

Barsmanshvili has never married and says she has no family. Although the money she earns is not enough for her, she tries to get along on it, paying for gas, light, water and food. But she said she doesn’t have any problems other than her unemployment. Barsmanshvili wants to work as an engineer again.