Sunday Bazaar

Despite its name, this bazaar operates daily, but is busiest on Sundays. Another atmospheric taste of Central Asia, this is the place to stock up on food before a trek, or simply to eat your way through the array of different cultural traditions that call Karakol home. Vats of Korean salads and Dungan dishes tempt the palate, alongside carefully arranged pyramids of dried fruit, sunflower seeds, nuts and technicolour spices. In spring 50kg sacks of sugar lie piled in huge stacks, in preparation for the summer's first berries and jam making. In summer and autumn the market explodes with colour, as fruit from all over the Issyk-Kul region is displayed temptingly.
   By and large, food is freshly prepared and locally produced, sold by smallholders and enterprising housewives. Some goods, however, still reflect the megalith structure of the ex-Soviet Union, with sweets imported from Ekaterinburg, sausage from Moscow and cheese from Voronezh. Other parts of the bazaar betray Karakol's close proximity to China, with traditional medicines, cheap clothes and every kind of plastic household good imaginable.