Most people would love to purchase at least one souvenir from their trip to Russia. Just like most tourist destination cities in the world, prices are higher near the city center and attractive places in Moscow. However, there’s a place in Moscow where you can find authentic Russian souvenirs with more reasonable prices and have more options to purchase souvenirs. That place is the Izmailovo market, which is not close to the center of the city, but if you have enough time and energy on your tour to Russia, you can visit it by taking the subway to the northeast of Moscow.
In the northeast of the city, in the Izmailovo district of Moscow, there’s another Kremlin, which is not as famous as the main one, and people often call it ‘the fake Kremlin.’ This Kremlin was built based on Russian fairytales and supposed to depict the 14th to the 17th centuries of Russia. This multifunctional place is one of the cultural centers of Moscow. However, because it locates a little bit far from the center, where most of the Moscow attractive places on the Russia tour can be found, most people don’t bother to check it out. Though locals know it because of many things, including its wedding palace, the open-air museum for children with the old Russian theme, an amusement park for kids, etc. tourists have other reasons beside them to check this place during their tour to Russia. It has one of the most famous markets in Moscow, which we at the Star Travel Company would suggest our tourists visit if they want to buy a souvenir on their travel to Russia.
Izmailovo market locates beside the Izmailovo Kremlin. Though it has been a market since the 17th century, Izmoilovo Market has become well-known amongst tourists in recent decades. The Izmolovo market is an ideal place for tourists who want to buy souvenirs on their tour to Moscow as well as for tourists who collect antiques, paintings, and crafts. Most tourists who have visited this place on their travel to Russia will admit that prices on this market are a lot less than products near the city center. However, if you’re not conscious, there’s a chance that you’ll buy fake products at higher prices.
As we mentioned, the Izmailovo market is an ideal place to buy souvenirs, especially for those who don’t want to spend lots of money on little things. You can find various forms of art and souvenirs in this place, from well-known matryoshka dolls to paintings, leather, antiques, former Soviet Union’s relics, and other types of handicrafts. However, if you don’t have enough time on your Moscow tour, or don’t want to spend your time, energy, and money on purchasing souvenirs, we recommend to stick around the city center, and all of its attractions, instead of going to this market. However, it’s quite easy to go to this place of you take Moscow metro to the northeast of the city.
You can find any sorts of well-known Russian souvenirs in this market as well as some that you didn’t know exists. If you have enough time to wander around the fortress, you’ll find several interesting things to purchase in this market. From artists who put their paintings on display, vendors who have loads of original and copy of antiques, amber made products, including amber necklaces, amber jewelry boxes, and many other amber-made things, Khokhloma, Gzhel, Lacquer boxes, and Matryoshka dolls, which occupied a whole section for themselves.
The painting park is one of the favorite parts of the Izmailovo market for tourists and locals as well. There you can find more than 100 artists from all over the Russia federation that present their art and talent for tasteful costumers. It’s quite harder than you think to pass some of these paintings and not picturing them on your home’s wall. Even if you don’t have any plans to buy paintings from these talented artists, it’s still exciting to walk around this section and enjoy its beauty.
In Russian culture, anything that past over fifty years old, it can be recognized as an antique, and the antique market inside the Izmailovo market is its treasury. There you can find bronze candlesticks, ancient jewelry, old books, and fantastic furniture. There you’ll see various people with different backgrounds, from collectors, designers, and decorators to tourists who mostly want to enjoy the beauty of the place and its atmosphere rather than purchasing anything from there. However, if you insist on buying antiques in this market on your travel to Russia, we recommend you visit this market in the early morning because most of the authentic antiques will be sold to collectors and professionals as soon as the market opens.
If you have interests in the military lifestyle, military theme, or military items, the Izmailovo market is there for you. There are several military theme shops inside the market, in which you can purchase military paraphernalia, objects, clothes, flags, medals, insignia, uniforms, and other sorts of things from Russian or other nation militaries. Most of the items in this section are not genuinely belong to the Russian army, but you still can find several original pieces that are used in the Russian military. Several unique items may tempt you to spend some extra money on your travel to Russia. However, if you’re on budget travel, we don’t recommend it, especially if you’re not an expert in this matter because you can easily be deceived to purchase an overprice fake for an original antique.
Among all the sections in this market, the Craft Rows are the most popular. Tourists often spent most of their time in this market in this section because this is the place where you can find various sorts of crafts from Gzhel, Palekh, Khokhloma painting, Dymkovo toys, leather, wood artworks, lace, stone, and lots of other things. The Izmailovo Market is the place where most tourists, who have decided to visit it, would purchase their souvenirs from Russia tour.
If you have plans to buy more than one souvenir to have at least one physical memory from your travel to Russia, this market is one of the best places that you can visit. However, we still don’t encourage our travelers to visit this place if they don’t have enough free time on their tour to Russia, because Moscow has loads of sites that you must visit during your travel to Russia. Izmailovo Market would not be on the top of our list. If you want to learn more about top Russia attractive places or best shopping centers in Russia, you can always check out our weblog, where we give all sorts of tips and pieces of advice about Russia tours.
