The Yashil Bazaar in Baku: the green market where the city shops, what to take home, what to taste before buying and how to find your way around

Two metro stops from the Old City, in the Nasimi district, there is a high-roofed hall where Baku does its shopping: the Yashil Bazaar, the green market, with aisles of pomegranates, mountains of dried fruit, sheep's cheeses in skins hanging from hooks, herbs in bunches, saffron in little boxes and stallholders who cut you a piece of whatever it is to taste before you ask for it. It is not made for tourists, and that is why it is the place where you best understand what is eaten in Azerbaijan and where you fill your bag with things not sold at the airport. This guide says what is in each section, what is worth it, how much to haggle and how to plan the morning.

How it is laid out

The main hall has its aisles by product: at the entrance, seasonal fruit and vegetables, with Goychay pomegranates from October to January, quinces, persimmons, summer melons and Absheron tomatoes that smell of tomato; in the middle, the dried fruit and nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, dried apricots, prunes, dates and candied walnuts, sold by weight and all there to taste; to one side, the cheeses and dairy, and at the back, the meat and fish, with Caspian sturgeon and, in low voices, caviar, which is best not bought here because its legality is doubtful and so is the cold chain. Outside, under the arcades, are the herbs, the pickles and brined vegetables in drums, the eggs and fresh tandir bread.

What to buy and what to taste

Motal, the sheep's cheese matured inside a sheepskin, strong and crumbly, cut from the skin and sold by weight, and the fresh white cheese from the villages; Absheron saffron, from the villages of the peninsula, in little boxes, good and cheap compared with the European kind; sumac, the red sour powder put on kebab and onions; lavashana, the thin sheets of plum or cornelian cherry pulp dried in the sun, sour, which children eat as sweets and cooks use in stews; mountain honey, in jars, offered on a teaspoon to taste; black tea from Lankaran, in leaves, and sugar in lumps to drink it as they do here, with the lump in your mouth; and the nuts, above all walnuts and hazelnuts, which are local and not imported. What is not a good idea is the caviar, for the reasons given, nor the Levantine spices some stalls keep for tourists and which are not from here.

How to buy

You taste everything before buying, it is the custom and nobody minds; you buy by weight, in kilos and half kilos, and pay in manats in cash, because cards are not used at the stalls; for fruit and dried fruit prices are fixed or almost, and there is little haggling, done with a smile and a request to round down; at the honey and saffron stalls, a little more. The best time is the morning, from eight to twelve, when the produce arrives and the stallholders are in good humour, and it is best to avoid the heat of a summer afternoon. The stallholders speak Azerbaijani and Russian, little English, but the market works with fingers and the phone calculator.

How to get there and what is nearby

The bazaar is next to Nizami metro station, on the red line, two stops from Icherisheher and the Old City, and you find it by asking for Yashil Bazar, which everyone knows. Five minutes' walk away is the Officers' Park, with its benches and fountain, to sit and eat what you have bought, and ten minutes by metro, back towards the sea, the Carpet Museum and the Philharmonic Park, next to the Old City, to round off the morning. An hour in the bazaar is plenty, unless you eat at the kebab stalls outside, which is a good idea.

Frequently asked questions