Foreign shoppers swarm Turkey after lira crash

The sea of Bulgarian buses parked outside a market in Turkey's historic city of Edirne betrays the scale of the currency crisis impeding President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's path to a third decade of rule.

The mosque-filled city on Turkey's western edge was an early capital of the Ottoman Empire when it was expanding across the Middle East and Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.

It is now the place where shoppers from Bulgaria and the Balkans -- themselves some of Europe's poorest countries -- go to stock up on everything from underwear to walnuts at a fraction of their cost back home.

"For us, the crisis is good, but it is very bad for the Turkish people," said tour guide Daniela Mircheva before boarding a bus back to her Bulgarian hometown of Yambol.

"We were in a similar situation maybe 10, 11, 12 years ago," the 49-year-old said, in reference to the 2008 global financial crisis. "It is very difficult."

Half the price

Turkey's beleaguered lira has crashed under the weight of an unusual economic experiment Erdogan is conducting in a bid to boost support before elections due by mid-2023.

Erdogan has pushed the central bank to slash interest rates in fervently-held belief that this will finally cure Turkey's chronic inflation problem.

It has -- as economists had universally predicted -- done the exact
opposite.

Consumer prices are climbing at an annual rate of more than 20 percent. 

Some economists think this pace could accelerate in the coming months.

The lira has shed a third of its value since the start of November alone.

It was beginning to lose five percent a day until Erdogan announced new currency support measures Monday that managed to suspend the slide.

This means Mircheva can afford to pile a few extra jugs of sunflower oil on her bus packed with Bulgarian
shoppers.

"It is half the price it is in Bulgaria. It is much cheaper for us, much cheaper," she said.

But the mood among the market's Turkish traders is grim.

Humiliating

"It is humiliating," said Gulsen Kaya from behind her counter filled with sweaters and winter clothes. "Look at what he has done to Turkey!"

Erdogan is betting that a cheap lira will create exports-driven growth that puts Turkey on a path followed by China during an economic transformation that pulled millions out of poverty and created a new middle class.

He championed the poor when bringing his Islamic-rooted party to power against all odds in 2002.