Zelyoni Bazaar - Green Market

Yesterday Sunday I made a trip again to Zelyoni Bazaar (Green Market). This time I went alone with hubby leaving kids at home. We waited for a taxi by the roadside nearby the house. I seldom see a proper registered taxi in Almaty. Actually anyone here can convert their car to a taxi. It is like a teksi sapu back in our country.

You just have to stand by the road side n wave to any car passing by especially old model cars. I could say that people here are very rich as they mostly drive Porsche, Mercz, BMW, Lexus, Toyota or Infinity. So yesterday we managed to stop a car driven by a beautiful lady. She was accompanied by her boyfriend probably.

Before we went into the car she asked our destination n how much we were willing to pay. We reached at the market after about 15min journey. The place was packed with lots of people. This time I interestingly took ample time browsed n looked around the market.

The Green Bazaar is the second largest market in Central Asia. A person who goes to this bazaar can buy anything that he wants and needs. We can find all kinds of foods from fresh vegetables, meat, dried nuts, pickles, cheese n more. It also has a section of clothes, shoes, house appliances n more. It is a one stop convenient centre under one roof.

I stopped at the vegetables section as I saw chilli. Red n green chillies like one in Malaysia. Excitedly I told hubby that I wanted to buy those. As usual language has always been a problem. Lucky hubby can speak basic Russian so at least he could ask for the price. I picked n chose the chillies n put on the weigh machine. The lady was trying to tell something which I understood she wanted to say “Are u sure u wants all this chillies” I nodded.

She then held one chilli n said something. Hubby asked how much per kilo n she said something while showing n held the chilli. After awhile then only we could figured out the she sells the chillies by piece which it was 15Tengge each (30cents). Well.. I just said Yes to make things easier n after counted the chillies we had to pay 300Tengge (RM8). Hmm.. ni mmg kena makan sampai ke tangkai2 n biji2 semua.. hahahahha.

We then continued to the meat section. I wanted to buy some beef. Again we had a tough moment to talk with them. We went to the halal section then asked whether it was a beef or lamb. Hubby doesn’t know those words in Russian. Then we kept saying beef n the man kept saying something in Russian.

Then we made a sign n sound like is this “moo mooo” with hand showing the cow’s horn. He nodded yes. Then We confirmed again by waving our hand as NO n said “mbekkk.. mbekkk”. We just wanted to make sure it was beef as we didn’t eat lamb. The man nodded again. Now we got confused already.. hahahahahhaha.

The man still didn’t gave up n try convincing us made signals like a big sign telling it was a cow n this was not lamb. After looked at the meat n confident I said ok.. why don’t we just buy it. We told the man that we wanted only half kilo n he said NO.. NO.. (which actually moving his head). He told us they didn’t sell by kilos but by the size that they already cut. Huh.. the one that he has was as big as my laptop. Nak buat kenduri ke? Hehehhhe.

So we decided not to buy n walked off after about 15min with him. What an experience! I went thru all the meat section n had a look at the meat horse. We then continued to buy some nuts n looked around. We took the taxi home which at first the driver reluctant to take our price then he just dropped us at the junction of the main road which was about 300 metres from home.