Bazar-i Kalan
Bazar-i Kalan ("great bazaar") is the covered central market of Talas and the market quarter around it, on the eastern edge of the Old Talas Citadel Quarter. A bazaar has stood on the site since at least the Kokand period, when it grew up beside the rebuilt citadel; the present covered hall was built in the 1950s.[1] The market is open daily and sells fruit and vegetables, spices, dried fruit, beef and mutton, dairy products, felt rugs, clothing and electronics. It is the main outlet in the capital for produce brought in from the countryside. Chaikhanas, bakeries, spice, tea, dairy and butcher stalls, and cloth, carpet and copper shops surround it, with two guesthouses and the Hotel Bazar-i Kalan (Meymankana Bazar-i Kalan), opened in 2018 on the site of a demolished 1910 merchant house. Chaikhana Bakyt, by the market, is a delivery partner of the Tulpar app. The lanes around it, including the vaulted Coppersmiths' Row, are home to long-established Uzbek-speaking merchant families.[1][2] In the 2000s its electronics stalls were known for cheap pirated software discs, which the nearby software company Kuble Soft, maker of a 1995 trading game named after the bazaar, blamed for its closure in 2007.
References
- ^ City of Talas (2017). Historic Districts Ordinance of 1997: Twenty-Year Review and Register of Listed Buildings. Talas.
- ^ Talas State University Press (2012). The Urban Speech of Talas: Uzbek and Persian Elements in Iradi. Talas.