Last updated: July 2026 · Written by the Kazakhstan Tourism Guide editorial team
The first time I walked into this market I got about ten steps before a woman behind a mountain of dried apricots pushed one into my hand and waved off any suggestion that I should pay for it. That is the market in a nutshell. It runs on samples, on a little back-and-forth, and on the assumption that you will taste before you buy.
The Green Bazaar is Almaty’s central covered market at 53 Zhibek Zholy Avenue, a short walk from Panfilov Park. Open Tuesday to Sunday and closed Mondays, it is free to enter, and you come here for horse-meat sausage, dried fruit by the kilo, fermented mare’s milk, and Korean carrot salad. Bring cash, go in the morning, and give it one to two hours.
It is one of the most rewarding things to do in the city, and if you are pulling together a wider list of things to do in Almaty, put this near the top. It is the single best place to understand what Kazakhstan actually eats.
| At a glance | Details |
|---|---|
| Address | 53 Zhibek Zholy Avenue, central Almaty (rear entrance on Makataev Street) |
| Hours | Roughly 8am–7pm; some stalls stay open later (check current times) |
| Closed | Mondays |
| Nearest metro | Zhibek Zholy |
| Entry | Free |
| Payment | Cash or Kaspi (locals’ phone payment); tourists should carry cash |
| Time needed | 1–2 hours |
What is the Green Bazaar?
The Green Bazaar is Almaty’s oldest and best-known food market, a large covered hall in the middle of the city where locals do their real shopping. It is not a tourist attraction dressed up as a market. It is a working market that tourists happen to love.
You will see the name written a few different ways, and it helps to recognise all of them. In Kazakh it is Kök bazar (Көк базар). In Russian it is Zelyony bazar (Зелёный базар). Both translate to “Green Bazaar,” and if you are searching signs or asking a taxi driver, any of the three will land you in the right place. Some people also just call it the Central Bazaar.
Where the “green” comes from is a small debate. The most common explanation is that when it was reorganised in the 1920s it became the city’s collective-farm market, heaped with fresh green produce, and the colour stuck. Whatever the origin, the name has outlived every rebuild of the actual building.
A short history — from 1875 to today
Trade on this spot goes back to 1875, when the settlement was still called Verny and a Gostiny Dvor — a merchants’ trading yard — was laid out here. That first market did not last long in its original form.
In 1887 a major earthquake flattened much of Verny, and the trading rows went down with the rest of the town. What you see today is the result of a long series of rebuilds on the same commercial ground.
The market as locals know it really took shape from 1927, when it was reorganised as the Central Collective Farm Market. This is the period that most likely gave it the “Green” nickname. For decades it was a sprawling wooden market, open to the weather.
In 1975 the wooden stalls gave way to the covered concrete hall that still forms the core of the place — that slightly Soviet, functional shell with the high roof. Then in 2017 a large new pavilion was added, with parking, modernising the complex without erasing its character. So when you stand inside, you are standing on roughly 150 years of continuous trade, even if almost none of the original structure survives.
Where it is and how to get there
The Green Bazaar sits in central Almaty at 53 Zhibek Zholy Avenue. The main entrance faces Zhibek Zholy; there is a second entrance at the back on Makataev Street. It is a genuinely central location, which is part of why it is so easy to fold into a day of sightseeing.
The simplest way in is the metro. The nearest station is Zhibek Zholy, which puts you within a couple of minutes’ walk of the main doors. Almaty’s metro is clean, cheap, and dead easy to use, so if you are staying anywhere near the line, take it.
On foot, the market is a short walk from Panfilov Park and the wooden Zenkov Cathedral, so most people combine the two. If you are coming from further out, the reliable option is a Yandex Go taxi (the local ride-hailing app), which is cheap by Western standards and saves you haggling over a fare. A ride across the central districts is often only a few hundred tenge.
If you are still sketching out your days, our Almaty itinerary slots the bazaar into a morning that flows naturally into the park and the old town, so you are not doubling back.
Opening hours and the best time to visit
The market is open Tuesday to Sunday and closed on Mondays. That Monday closure catches a lot of visitors out, so build your plans around it. General hours are roughly 8am to 7pm, though this moves around: some stalls open earlier, some sources quote later closing to around 9pm, and quieter vendors pack up when trade dies down. Treat the times as approximate and check current information if you are cutting it fine.
Entry is free. There is no ticket, no gate, no queue — you just walk in.
Go in the morning if you can. That is when the produce is freshest, the meat has just been laid out, the bread is warm, and the crowds are thinner. By late afternoon the best of the dried fruit has been picked over and the aisles get tight. Give yourself one to two hours; an hour is enough for a quick lap and a snack, two lets you taste your way around properly and actually buy things.
How the market is laid out
Getting oriented saves you a lot of aimless circling. The main hall is the one you enter from Zhibek Zholy — a big covered space with dried fruit and nuts near the front, dairy and Korean salads through the middle, and the meat section pushed to the back. The meat being at the rear is deliberate; you walk past everything sweet and fragrant before you reach it.
Behind the main hall, facing Makataev Street, there is a second produce building. Prices there tend to run a little cheaper than the front hall, so if you are buying in any quantity it is worth the extra thirty seconds to walk through. The two buildings are joined by an enclosed bridge, so you can cross between them without going back outside.
Look up, too. The upper floor is given over to clothes, toys, and household bits rather than food. It is not why you came, but it is handy to know the layout is roughly food downstairs, everything else upstairs.
What to eat and buy at the Green Bazaar, stall by stall
This is the real reason to come. Below is how I work my way around, section by section, with the things actually worth your tenge. Prices I quote are rough and from recent visits — treat them as a guide, because market prices move constantly.
The meat hall — horse meat, kazy and shuzhuk
The meat hall at the back is the heart of the place and, for a lot of first-time visitors, the most confronting bit. There is a whole dedicated horse-meat section, because horse is not exotic here — it is a staple, and it has been central to nomadic Kazakh cooking for centuries.
The thing to try, or at least to look at, is kazy (also written qazy): a sausage made from horse rib meat and fat, seasoned with garlic and spices and packed into a natural casing. It is rich, faintly gamey, and genuinely delicious sliced thin. Its cousin shuzhuk is a firmer, drier horse sausage. Vendors will happily cut you a sliver to taste before you commit to buying a length.
Beyond horse, you will find beef, mutton, and chicken laid out in the usual way. Pork gets its own separate corner, usually run by Slavic vendors — a small, visible reflection of Kazakhstan’s mixed population, where a Kazakh Muslim majority lives alongside a large Russian and Ukrainian community. Keeping pork in its own area is a matter of respect, and it is worth understanding rather than tripping over.
One more thing you will spot and possibly do a double-take at: a sheep’s head (koy bas), sold as a delicacy. It is the ceremonial centrepiece of a proper beshbarmak feast, where the guest of honour is served the head. If you want the full story on kazy, beshbarmak, and the rest, our guide to Kazakhstan food goes deep on all of it.
Dairy row — kurt, kumys and shubat
The dairy section is where Kazakhstan’s nomadic pantry really shows itself, and it is where I send everyone who wants a proper taste of the country. Nothing here looks like a supermarket dairy aisle.
Start with kurt: hard, dense, intensely salty balls of dried fermented milk. They keep forever, which is exactly why nomads made them, and they are an acquired taste — sharp, sour, salty all at once. Buy one or two, not a bag, until you know how you feel about them.
Then there is kumys, fermented mare’s milk. It is mildly alcoholic, fizzy, and tangy in a way that surprises most people. Start with a small cup. It is a genuinely traditional drink, prized here, but it is not a smoothie and it does not pretend to be. Nearby you will often find shubat, its camel-milk equivalent, which is thicker and even more sour.
Rounding out the row you will see kaimak (a thick clotted cream), airan (a drinkable, yoghurt-like sour milk), and talkan (toasted milled grain, often stirred into milk or tea). Ask for a taste of anything before you buy; nobody minds.
Dried fruit and nuts
Near the entrance you hit the dried fruit and nut stalls, and this is the most fun section to shop because it runs almost entirely on samples. It is completely customary to taste before buying — the vendors expect it, and half the pleasure is standing there being handed dried apricots, figs, and sultanas one after another.
Everything is sold by weight. You will find apricots, raisins, figs, dates, prunes, plus walnuts, almonds, pistachios, and hazelnuts, often glossy and freshly stocked. As a rough guide, nuts have run somewhere around 875 to 2,624 KZT per kilo (very roughly US$2–5.50), depending on the type and quality — but this shifts constantly, so let the scale and the sample decide for you.
A tip: taste the same item at two or three stalls before buying. Quality varies more than price, and the difference between a mediocre dried apricot and a great one is night and day. Buy the great one.
The Korean “koreanka” salad stalls — morkovcha
One of the market’s quiet surprises is a run of stalls selling brightly coloured Korean salads, tended by women often called koreanka. The star is morkovcha — spicy, garlicky shredded-carrot salad. Here is the twist worth knowing: it is not really a Korean dish from Korea. It was invented by Central Asia’s Koryo-saram, ethnic Koreans deported to Kazakhstan under Stalin, who adapted Korean flavours to local ingredients. So this is genuinely a Kazakhstani food with a Korean soul.
Alongside the carrots you will find kimchi, funchoza (glass-noodle salad), spiced eggplant, marinated mushrooms, and a dozen other salads in tubs. Samples are freely offered — point at what looks good and you will get a forkful. Buy a couple of scoops and you have an instant, cheap picnic.
Honey, pickles, spices and fish
Between the big sections you will find the specialists. Honey vendors offer several varieties, dark to pale, usually with a spoon on hand for tasting. There are barrels and jars of pickles — cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, garlic — sold by the scoop.
The spice stalls are a visual highlight, with cones and mounds of red paprika, cumin, turmeric, and dried herbs, plus ready-mixed blends. And there is a fish section — smoked, dried, and salted river and lake fish — which has a strong aroma you will smell before you see it. None of these is why most people come, but they round out a proper shop, and the spices in particular make excellent, packable souvenirs.
Fresh produce, Aport apples and lepeshka bread
The fresh produce is what gives the market its name and its colour: pyramids of tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs, greens, peppers, and seasonal fruit. As a rough recent benchmark, tomatoes were around 750 KZT per kilo in 2025 — again, treat any figure as approximate.
If you are here in autumn, look for Aport apples, the enormous, fragrant variety that Almaty is famous for. The city’s very name is tied to apples, and a good Aport in season is a thing of beauty. They are seasonal, so no promises out of season.
Do not leave without warm bread. The round lepeshka (also called tandyr bread) is baked in clay tandyr ovens and sold fresh and hot, sometimes still warm enough to steam. A round costs very little and is one of the best cheap pleasures in the building. Tear a piece off on the spot.
Souvenirs and crafts
Scattered among the food, and more so upstairs and toward the edges, you will find souvenirs: felt slippers and hats, small textiles, magnets, and knick-knacks. The felt and textile work connects to a long craft tradition — if that side interests you, our piece on Kazakh culture gives the background. For edible souvenirs, honestly, the kazy, the spices, and a bag of good dried fruit beat any magnet.
Tasting samples and how haggling works
The sample culture is real and generous, especially at the dried fruit, dairy, honey, and Korean-salad stalls. Accepting a taste does not obligate you to buy, but do not graze your way around like it is a buffet — take a sample when you are genuinely considering the stall, and it is polite to buy something from at least one vendor who has fed you.
Now, haggling. The honest answer is that it depends heavily on what you are buying. For fresh food — produce, meat, dairy, bread — prices are close to fixed, and hard bargaining will just annoy people. For souvenirs, crafts, and other non-food goods, there is much more room, and a bit of negotiation is expected.
A few phrases and tactics that work:
- “Skidka?” — literally “a discount?” This one word, said with a smile, is your main tool.
- “Skolko stoit?” — “How much is it?” Always establish the price first.
- Buy in bulk. The real discounts come when you buy a kilo instead of a handful, or two items instead of one. Ask “if I take two, what’s the price?”
- Be ready to walk. Politely stepping away is the oldest move in the book; if the price was flexible, it often follows you.
- Stay friendly. This is a relationship, not a fight. Smiles get better prices than scowls.
A little Russian goes a long way here, but plenty of trade happens with a calculator, a pointed finger, and good humour, so do not be shy if you have no language at all.
Where to eat inside the bazaar
You will not go hungry inside. Beyond grazing your way around the stalls, there are proper places to sit. On the central pillars of the main hall you will find little coffee counters and, pleasingly, Dutch-pancake (poffertjes-style) spots turning out small sweet pancakes — a genuinely good mid-shop break.
Up on the mezzanine there are tea houses where you can sit with a pot of tea and a snack and watch the market move below you. For a fuller meal, grab Korean salads and fresh bread from the stalls and assemble your own lunch, or step out to one of the cafés around Panfilov Park a few minutes away. Inside, keep it simple: coffee, tea, a hot pancake, and back into the fray.
Etiquette, safety and practical tips
A few things make the visit smoother.
Payment. Locals pay by cash or by Kaspi, a phone-based payment system tied to a Kazakhstani bank account and phone number. As a tourist you almost certainly will not have Kaspi, so carry cash — small notes especially. Some larger stalls may take cards, but do not count on it.
Pickpockets. This is a crowded market, and crowded markets anywhere reward a bit of care. Keep your bag zipped and in front of you, keep your phone in a secure pocket, and do not flash a fat wad of cash while paying for a 500-tenge bag of nuts. Violent crime is not the concern; opportunistic theft in a crush is. For the bigger picture, our guide to whether Kazakhstan is safe covers the country beyond the market — and the short version is that it is a very safe place to travel.
Photography. The market is wonderfully photogenic, but ask before you photograph a vendor’s face or their stall up close. A smile and a gesture at your camera is usually all it takes, and many are happy to oblige. Some would rather you didn’t, and that is their call.
Dress and kids. No special dress code — dress as you would for any city outing, and comfortable shoes help on the concrete floors. Kids generally love the place for the colour, the animals-turned-food curiosity, and the endless samples, though the meat hall can be a lot for squeamish young ones.
Nearby sights
The bazaar’s location makes it easy to string together with other stops. Just a few minutes’ walk away is Panfilov Park, a lovely green space that holds the bright, all-wooden Zenkov Cathedral — one of the tallest wooden buildings in the world, built without a single nail. The park also has the war memorial and eternal flame. It is the obvious pairing: market first thing, park and cathedral after. And if you want to push further afield afterwards, the bazaar sits close to the departure points for the best day trips from Almaty.
For a bigger day, cap it off at Kok Tobe, the hill above the city reached by cable car, with views over Almaty and the mountains behind it. Our guide to Kok Tobe in Almaty covers the cable car and what is up top. And if you are ranging further afield across the country, our overview of things to do in Kazakhstan will help you plan beyond the city.
Frequently asked questions
What can I expect to find at the Green Bazaar?
Expect a full food market: a horse-meat hall with kazy and shuzhuk sausage, dairy stalls selling kurt, kumys, and shubat, dried fruit and nuts sold by weight, Korean salads like morkovcha, honey, pickles, spices, fish, fresh produce, warm lepeshka bread, and, upstairs, clothes, toys, and a handful of souvenirs and crafts.
Are there local food options at the Green Bazaar?
Yes — this is one of the best places in Almaty to eat local. Graze samples of dried fruit, cheese, and Korean salads as you shop, then sit at the coffee counters or Dutch-pancake stalls on the central pillars, or a tea house on the mezzanine. Grab fresh bread and salads to build a cheap, delicious lunch on the spot.
Can I haggle for prices at the Green Bazaar?
Sometimes. For souvenirs, crafts, and non-food goods, bargaining is expected — ask “skidka?” (a discount), buy in bulk, and be ready to walk away. For fresh food like produce, meat, and dairy, prices are close to fixed and hard haggling is frowned on. Stay friendly either way; it gets you better prices than pressure.
When is the best time to visit the Green Bazaar?
Go in the morning, ideally soon after it opens around 8am. That is when produce and meat are freshest, bread is warm, and the aisles are least crowded. Any day except Monday works, since the market is closed Mondays. Weekday mornings are calmer than weekends. Allow one to two hours for a proper look and a few tastings.
How do I get to the Green Bazaar?
It is at 53 Zhibek Zholy Avenue in central Almaty. The easiest route is the metro to Zhibek Zholy station, a couple of minutes’ walk from the main entrance. It is also a short walk from Panfilov Park. From further out, take a Yandex Go taxi (the local ride-hailing app), which is cheap and skips any fare negotiation.
Is the Green Bazaar open on Mondays?
No. The Green Bazaar is closed on Mondays. It is open Tuesday through Sunday, roughly 8am to 7pm, though hours vary by stall and some sources quote later closing. If Monday is your only free day in Almaty, plan a different activity and save the market for another morning. Always check current hours if your timing is tight.
Is the Green Bazaar worth visiting?
Absolutely. Even if you buy nothing, it is the best free window into how Kazakhstan eats and lives — horse-meat sausage, fermented mare’s milk, Korean carrot salad, and mountains of dried fruit under one Soviet-era roof. It is central, quick to visit, and pairs naturally with Panfilov Park. For most visitors it is a highlight of Almaty, not a chore.
Is it safe at the Green Bazaar?
Yes, it is safe. The main thing to watch is pickpocketing in the crowds, so keep your bag zipped and in front of you and don’t flash cash. There is no serious safety concern beyond ordinary big-market caution. Kazakhstan is generally a very safe country for travellers, and the bazaar is no exception — just stay aware in the crush.
Final thoughts
Of everything you can do in Almaty, the Green Bazaar is the one I would not let anyone skip. It costs nothing to walk in, it takes an hour or two, and it hands you the whole country on a plate — literally, in slivers of kazy and cups of kumys and fistfuls of dried apricot pressed on you by people who are proud of what they sell.
Come hungry, come in the morning, come with cash and an open mind. Taste more than you think you should, buy from the vendor who fed you, and take home a bag of good dried fruit and some spices. It is the most honest, most delicious introduction to Kazakhstan you will find anywhere, and it is right in the middle of the city waiting for you.
Photo credits
Images via Wikimedia Commons: Green Bazaar by Carl Malamud (CC0); Green Bazaar meat hall by sly06 / CC BY 2.0; Kazy horse sausage by Muzaffar Murodovich / CC BY-SA 4.0; Dried fruit and nuts by neiljs / CC BY 2.0. Reused under their respective CC0/CC BY/CC BY-SA licences.
