Jayma Bazaar

The huge oriental market stretches for kilometers along the western Ak-Bura riverside. One can find there everything: food products, clothing, household goods, textiles, souvenirs and even a cattle market. The majority of the goods is Chinese articles of popular consumption, but everything cheap and in plenty.

An inexperienced tourist gets embarrassment of riches from the chaos prevailing there: crowds of people, traders and porters with trolleys, various stalls where perfumery set out pell-mell with Chinese jeans, and next to it right on the ground there are apples in cardboard boxes and cheap toys.

Seasonal vegetables and fruits look particularly appetizing in summer: juicy red and yellow apples, sappy peaches, sweet grapes, grown under the generous eastern sun, yellow melon and striped watermelons. And there is also a variety of dried fruits and nuts: dried raisins of different grape varieties, apricots, dates, pistachios, walnuts, almonds and peanuts – sold directly from the huge bags. Lively women in bright colorful dresses offer fragrant, hot tortillas right from tandoor. It is impossible to go past ready-to-eat food: kebabs, pilaf, samsa and beshbarmak without mouth watering.

The Osh bazaar is considered one of the Central Asian most colorful and biggest markets by sales turnover. And what is more, it has been operating on the same place over 2,000 years, since the time when Osh was crossed by one of the branches of the legendary Silk Road.

Tourists love the bazaar, while the locals consider is to be an integral part of their life. Traders not only from all over Kyrgyzstan, but also from China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan come in flocks there. The bazaar is open 7 days a week from early morning till 5-6 PM. Most crowded it is on Sundays, and less on Mondays.