← All articles · Kazakhstan · 15 June 2016

Almaty, Kazakhstan: The Green Bazaar, where they feed you before you buy

The Green Bazaar in Almaty: horse meat counters, mountains of dried fruit, and stallholders who hand you samples until buying something feels like the polite response.

Almaty’s central market, and the fastest way to understand what this part of the world eats.

Back down in town, the Green Bazaar fed us before we bought anything: whole counters of dried curds and cheeses with sellers insisting on samples, and produce stacked like it's competing.

Dileep sampling from a small cup at a dairy counter in the Green Bazaar, tubs of white kurt balls and mounds of cheese along the stall — Quality control at the dairy rows, June 2016. Verdict: strong, in every sense.

A produce stall stacked with cherries, strawberries, apricots, pears and cabbages, the seller reaching over the scales — June produce practising its pyramid formations.

A busy market hall with bananas and tomatoes stacked on counters, handwritten price signs and shoppers passing through — Handwritten prices, loud banners, zero minimalism. Exactly as a bazaar should be.

A woman crossing a paved square carrying two buckets, one full of red apples and one of apricots — Almaty logistics, June 2016: apples in one hand, apricots in the other.

We left assuming we would be back within a year or two. It took eight, and then we couldn't stay away.

The rest of Kazakhstan is its own set of stories: Astana in the north, and Shymkent, Otrar and Turkistan in the deep south.

More from this city in our three Almaty trips.