The (cold) water …merk, say those who travel in hot conditions on the streets of Thessaloniki, since the refrigerators of the kiosks are empty in the blink of an eye and the water bottles do not have time to cool down, while the high temperatures make most people – especially in the midday hours – choose the taxi as a means of transport transportation even for routes that would otherwise be done on foot.

The search for a bottle of cold -sometimes ice water has evolved into a …safari and mercury, which has usurped high thermometer prices in recent weeks, has soared related sales. In fact, as people in the area say, kiosks and convenience stores have broken records in the sales of bottled water, especially in the city center, where during the hot hours of the day the small bottles almost … disappear.

A typical example is a kiosk in Egnatia, where there was a day when he sold up to 15 boxes, i.e. 360 bottles! “There is a 100% increase in the sales of half-liter waters, while the percentage in larger bottles is lower and this is due to two reasons. First, the long-lasting heat, but also that there is no storage space in the small places, since the kiosks have no storage, so they avoid everything that is bulky. Sure they would sell more big water, but the cost and transportation is very dysfunctional. Especially with the observance of loading and unloading schedules, they don’t have time to get supplies a second time during the day”, notes the president of Tobacco Convenience Stores and Stands of Macedonia, Konstantinos Iakovou.

The first to empty are the refrigerators in the center of the city, where more citizens go to the market or to their jobs, while in these months there are also many tourists, who, in fact, are impressed by the water prices since in most European countries, the price is – in the best of cases – double. “A French couple with two children was found in the center, the woman bought four waters and paid with a 20 euro note. Her husband asked the owner several times if he made a mistake with the change, since he paid 2 euros, while in his country he would have paid 16”, says Mr. Iakovou.

The last time, however, that the stall holders ran to fill their coolers was in the summer of 2017, when a prolonged heatwave had also hit our country and the waters were still hot.

More races for taxis due to heat

With or without water in hand, those who are currently on the streets of the city, especially at noon, find it rather … dark and they use taxis even for short distances, as stated by Klimis Leontiadis, president of the Thessaloniki taxi union “Hermis”, speaking on the APE-MPE radio station “Agency 104.9 FM”.

according to him, the empty city “dropped” jobs, but increased the need of the remaining citizens to travel by taxis for the sake of air conditioning. “For a few days now, the city has been empty and the traffic has been relieved, especially in its central axes. Other years there was even less traffic in taxis in the summer, while this year when there is a need for people, due to the prolonged high temperature, to get into one as quickly as possible to reach their destination, the picture is better. We also do very short trips with customers who tell us that they are forced to use us to avoid sunbathing”, noted Mr. Leontiadis.