An eight-piece wrench set for Dh10. A screwdriver set for Dh15.
Quality is so-so, but they can do the job. Welcome to Baniyas Square, popularly known as Al Nasr Square, Dubai's trading nucleus in the Deira side. It's where every kit and caboodle is an unbeatable bargain.
On laid-back weekends after the Friday noon prayers, the square and its suburbs come alive. But three months into the amnesty offer for overstayers, it's a little less busy. The architecture of surrounding buildings offers touches of Arabia, but goods sold and people milling around its busy byways give the square an international character.
Kebab shops are found next to McDonalds. Not far from the square are signs of a growing Chinatown, of which the China Trade Centre forms the core. Red lanterns can be seen all around. Shops sell all sorts of goods made in the mainland.
In many ways, the square still stands as testimony to the earlyglory of the Gulf's premiere trading city. The Square was the hangout of the engineers and workers who dredged the Dubai Creek in 1963, which allowed bigger ships to get in and out. When oil was discovered three years later in Dubai, the economy went into overdrive.
Though old pictures of Baniyas Square tell us that it has changed over the years, it essentially remained the same.
Dubai itself has metamorphosed from a pearl trade centre to a hub of the gold and re-export trade, which has seen the other side of the city mushroom into steel-and-glass towers.
Despite the modern trappings high-rises, neon lights and giant LED screens traffic comes to a creaking halt on the narrow roads that lead to this busy square north of the Creek.
Baniyas Square can be likened to Victoria Park, the sanctuary of Hong Kong's working class and also a hub for tourists out on a bargain-hunting spree.
"We bumped into this place because we were told there are many bargains here. And knowing that Dubai is almost like a freeport, we're not really disappointed," said Margaret, a European tourist undaunted by the war in Iraq, who came to Dubai to visit a relative.
During weekends, ordinary workers and tourists flock to its perpetually busy streets.
Many can be seen chatting on benches, playing chess, taking a catnap on its manicured lawns (before the sprinklers are activated), or idling by the fountain in the shadow of Baniyas and Deira Towers, with the signature airport control tower-like top.
The square is where old Dubai is constantly undergoing renewal. "I've grown up in this square," said Humaid Raoof, 28, son of the owner of a nearby restaurant, serving mouth-watering trays of Mixed Raoof Kebab. "It was the core of the city."
That was before the Manhattan-like skyline of Sheikh Zayed Road came up.
While the other side of city developed fast, Baniyas Square retained its character. It was the site of the first Arab Unity School, founded in 1974, with only 15 pupils. That was the time when the Clock Tower was the outer edge of the city.
Says Paluku Ndiwa, a buy-and-sell trader from Congo, "It's like seeing the world pass right before your eyes because of the variety of people you can see in such a small area. It's one of my favourite hangouts with friends on weekends."
Baniyas Square offers a pulse of a rapidly developing city's tourism and trading activities.Economic freedom
"I come here regularly," says Inayatollah, 26, an Afghan who works as a store keeper in nearby Naif district, playing a game of chess with his compatriot, Yasser. They go to the nearby brick-and-mortar Al Futtaim Mosque for prayers in between.
The hundreds or thousands of faithful spilling onto the streets during afternoon prayers are a fascinating sight.
Kristopher Sretoslevov, an engineer from Bulgaria, likens Baniyas Square to the public square in Sofia.
Says Sretslevov: "This is place reminds me of home somehow. Except that there's more variety of people here."
He was having a smoke on one of the benches with his colleague, Radostiu Dimov.
Since Dubai became part of the UAE Federation, the city has continued living life in the fast lane. But while the Creek allowed Dubai's re-export business to explode, the freeports in Jebel Ali, Al Hamriya and the Airport Free Zone have further cemented its status.
This drove activity farther away from the Dubai Creek, which has turned into the Arabian version of the River Seine in Paris, airconditioned dhows in place tourist flatboats.
Dubai remained a rampart of free trade duty-free ports facilitate the entry of goods which are then immediately exported to other markets.
Economic freedom and the no-holds-barred promotion of Dubai, the core of the government's policy, have become a mantra being followed by other countries in the region.
The Baniyas Square is where the story of Dubai's transformation began to unfold before the first wells flowed oil in 1966.
Today, tourism and trading employ millions of people from different countries and match oil in importance to the emirate's economy. A mainstay of that economy is expatriate labour, mostly coming from South Asian countries.
Shamduddin Kevi, from Kerala, who has been working for eight years as a driver in a trading company, said he meets his elder brother, Mohammed, an electrician, on most Fridays at the Square.
"My vacation is every two years," said Kevi. "I came back a few months ago. It's hard to stay away from my wife, who's now six months pregnant with our first baby. On weekends, when I'm not busy, I can't help but think about her. I try to pass the time here and see my friends."
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