Things to Do in Green Bazaar

Sheep head tasting at the meat arcade

The butcher rows at Green Bazaar's far end display rows of bleached sheep heads grinning on metal counters, their teeth gleaming under fluorescent tubes. A vendor will hack one apart with an axe, handing you a chunk of cheek meat that's surprisingly tender, tasting faintly of smoke and mountain herbs. The texture feels like concentrated lamb, best chased with raw onion and black tea from the next stall.

Kumis sampling in the dairy passage

Follow the sour, almost yeasty scent to the plastic jugs frothing with pale kumis - fermented mare's milk that's lightly sparkling and tastes like yogurt left out in a barn. The seller, usually a woman in a quilted jacket, ladges it from aluminum vats into enamel cups. You feel the fizz on your tongue before a gentle alcoholic warmth spreads. Locals swear by it for hangovers, so you'll spot plenty of sheepish-looking businessmen on Saturday mornings.

Dried fruit treasure hunt under the main dome

Under the green-painted iron ribs, stallholders arrange apricots the color of autumn sunsets next to barberries that glow like rubies. The air tastes of concentrated sugar when you breathe near the raisin mountains, and vendors happily slice samples with pocket knives sticky with juice. If you mention you're flying home they'll vacuum-seal bags so the sweet, smoky aroma of Almaty follows you home.

Tea-blending lesson with the babushkas

Between sacks of smoky black tea from the Caspian and green bricks from China, elderly saleswomen mix custom blends, tossing dried thyme, rose petals, and tiny cubes of sugar into the scales. The scent is grassy, minty, and medicinal all at once; they'll let you crush a pinch to feel the oiliness of good leaf versus dusty fannings. Most speak enough English to explain which blend cures which ailment, though they laugh when you ask for hangover tea.

Samsa rolling with the bakery boys

In the corner near the electrical shop, bakers slap discs of dough against the tandoor walls, the blistering heat making lamb fat sizzle audibly. You can watch through a sooty window as they roll paper-thin layers, brush them with rendered tail fat, then fold them into triangles that emerge flaky and blistered. The smell of toasted cumin seeds drifts across the aisle until you give in and buy one, burning your fingers because you can't wait.

Auezov Theater district - crumbling tsarist apartments turned hip hostels, ten minutes' walk from the bazaar

Dostyk Avenue mid-rise hotels - Soviet blocks renovated with rooftop bars smelling of shashlik smoke

Panfilov Street guesthouses - quiet courtyards where grandmothers sell home-grown strawberries

Arbat pedestrian zone - cafés spill onto the street and you can roll home after late-night beer

Zhibek Zholy south - budget Soviet hotels shared with railway workers, cheapest beds in town

Gogol Street lofts - old printworks converted, thick brick walls muffle the morning meat-truck rumbles