Shopping and crafts
Skip the airport shop; there isn't one. Irad's best things are made by hand in the Old City of Talas, below Cathedral Hill in Iyık Janyl and in the villages of the Fergana Rim.
Coppersmiths' Row, Talas.
Bargaining is expected in the bazaars and craft workshops, and not in Bereke or Jıldız supermarkets or chemists. Start at about two-thirds of the asking price, smile, and accept the tea. Workshops take cash, in som or dollars.
Talas
- Bazar-i Kalan, the covered Great Bazaar on the east side of the Old City: spices, dried fruit, tea, honey, dairy, cloth and carpets. Come in the morning.
- Coppersmiths' Row (Misgaron), a vaulted 19th-century passage beside the bazaar, where families of metalworkers make and sell copper pots, trays, tea sets and silver-mounted horse tack. You can watch them work.
- The saddlers of the Old City, guild masters who make wooden saddles faced with chased silver and carnelian, braided kamcha whips and eagle hunters' gauntlets. A full saddle takes months and costs accordingly, but a whip or a bridle rosette fits in a suitcase.
- Felt. Women's cooperatives from the mountain villages sell shyrdak carpets, felt saddlecloths and slippers in the Old City. A real shyrdak is two layers of felt sewn together by hand, and the stitching should be tight and even on the back.
Iyık Janyl
Below Cathedral Hill the lanes are lined with icon-and-candle shops (look for shamdal jana ikona on the sign), and with felt, saddle, leather and souvenir shops. Small painted icons of St. Janyl and the White Rider, beeswax candles and carved wooden bread stamps are the classic pilgrim's gifts. The Iyık Janyl bazaar in the Lower Town sells fruit, dairy and crafts, and herders from the hills trade wool and livestock there.
The Fergana Rim and the valleys
- Sopol-Tepa pottery: green and blue glazed bowls and jugs, bought straight from the village workshops near Bazar-Korgon.
- Walnuts, apricots and honey from the Bazar-Korgon walnut bazaar, best in autumn. Walnuts were 22 som a kilo at Toktogul bazaar this October.
- Saddle blankets and woollens from the workshops of Kyzyl-Adyr, especially at the September horse fair.
Nurzhan
The Radiobazar, a block west of the south end of Azatlık Prospect, is a maze of radio, phone and computer stalls, and the place for a cheap phone charger. The Dastgoh market sells forged ironwork and vegetables.
What to bring home
Books in English on Irad are sold at the Talas State University Press shop (main building, room 7, weekdays 10:00 to 16:00) and by Arsha Books.