Shopping in Tashkent is a fun and rewarding experience at the numerous colourful bazaars throughout the city. Our Taskent Shopping Guide below tells you where to find the best shopping and what to buy, as well as other useful information for shopping around the city. If you get tired or need a break whilst haggling for that perfect souvenir, take a break and relax in one of the fine Tashkent restaurants. Our Uzbekistan Transportation Guide provides further information on shopping throughout the country.

Tashkent Shopping Guide

Fresh produce, grown locally, is the best buy in the local bazaar, especially fruits, nuts and vegetables in season. Local, richly flavoured melons put in an appearance towards the end of summer and are a steal at the price.

Most local people do their shopping in the bazaars, the largest of these being the Chorsu Bazaar. A huge, colourful melee of teeming humanity, Chorsu Bazaar has a wide range of wares, ranging from local produce to furniture made locally and hardware. Here, hand made items like crockery, rugs and traditional Uzbek dresses are available at a lower price than in the shops visited by tourists. A visit to these bazaars is a must-do on your trip. Foreigners are invariably charged higher prices, so take a local or guide with you to help in haggling over prices. Saligokh Street, known as Broadway locally, is a pedestrian-only open market place with a number of restaurants. It's perfect for a leisurely walk during the day, and you can take in the sights of street artists performing too. The street is easily accessed from the Amir Temur monument and the Uzbekistan Hotel.

In Broadway, one can find some really well made but inexpensive Russian nested dolls, popularly called 'matryoshkas' in Russian, along with Communist memorabilia, oil paintings, trinkets, antiques and other souvenirs.

The 'Mir store' just off Saligokh Street has a modern supermarket, coffee bar and some very expensive fashion outlets. This area is popular locally as 'Demir' and has MirBurger, an outlet selling burgers, pizza and local dishes at pretty low prices. A Georgian restaurant ('Tbilisi') and a Chinese restaurant add to the choice of cuisines available. There is a heavy police (militsiya) presence here and foreigners are sometimes asked to show their documents. Tourists are strongly advised to keep with them a photocopy of their passports and visas, while leaving the originals in the hotel for safety.

Of late, contemporary designer fashion and luxury goods outlets of internationally famous fashion houses have mushroomed in Tashkent. These are expensive and can be found in the Broadway area, Amir Temur Street and Pushkin Street.

A shop on Shota Rustavelli Street not far from the Grand Mir hotel called Human House is a must-see.  Hand made crafts and clothing of all sorts, attractive hand-painted tea sets and ceramics at very reasonable prices are on display. The shop is run by a non-profit organisation and provides income to needy craft workers, who are often from remote and very poor villages.

Abulkasym Madrassah is an old Islamic seminary that is now open to the public, and sells various craft items wrought by its artisans - bookstands, ceramic plates, carved plates, jewellery and jewel boxes, secret boxes and wooden tables. The shops, located in the former student rooms with small, low roofed doors, are worth a visit. Each room has a different artisan who works at a unique craft. The wooden bookstands used for holding the Q'uran are especially impressive. They are crafted out of a single piece of carved wood, which is cut to open in a number of ways. The largest ones are able to open into an amazing 16 different formations! 

Note: Starting September 2006 onwards, all of the outdoor shops, private hawkers and restaurants have been cleared from Saligokh Street and parks in the city. This could be because they did not have the necessary licences. However, this has changed the Broadway area and many of the parks considerably, altering their fair-like atmosphere. As of August 2007, a few of the painting sellers have returned, but are restricted to a smaller area.