Almaty Shopping

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TsUM is located on the corner of Zhibek Zholy Street and Abylay Khan Street street, and every post-Soviet city has this department store and every resident of Almaty knows TuSM.
TsUM composed of dozens of small shops with identical little counters selling mobile phones and electronic goods on the backside of the first floor, and cosmetics are found in the front side of the first floor. Clothes and underwear can be found on the second. There is a good selection of bed linens, tablewares, kitchen goods and souvenirs on the third floor.
They accept only KTZ so there are foreign exchange service in each floor but they close at 20:00 while shops are open till around 21:00.

Ramstore is a Kazakh version of MIGROS. MIGROS supermarkets are run by KOC company in Turkey and same company runs RAMSTOREs in Kazakhstan. This is a typical supermarket focused on food and drink.
Ramstore is in its mall building at the end of Satpeyeva Street. The mall has cafes, boutiques, etc including Lacoste and other well known brands

What to buy: Everything.

What to pay: Average European.

On trouve de nombreux vendeurs dans les rues, ici, des sortes de beignets, bien huileux et gras à souhait.

One finds many sellers in the streets, here, of the ways of fritters, very oily and fat to wish.

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Récemment, de grands centres commerciaux ont été construit. ils font le bonheur des Kazahks (du moins, de ceux qui ont les moyens d'y aller faire des achats), et attirent de nombreux curieux. Pour les touristes, il n'y a aucune différence avec ce qu'ils connaissent dans leur pays, et il est possible de retrouver toutes les grandes marques occidentales, qui pratiquent une politique expansionniste.

Lately, big shopping malls have been constructed. they make the happiness of the Kazahks (of the less, of those that have the means to be going there to make some purchases), and attract many curious. For the tourists, there is not any difference with what they know in their country, and it is possible to recover all big western marks, that practice an expansionist politics.

if i knew they have high quality artcrafts sold here in duty-free i wouldnt even go to TSUM,
there are 2 reasons:
1. all sold things are 100% kazakh and not from other asian countries
2. all hand made, good design

What to buy: again things made from felt like homeshoes, bags; some small rugs, pillowcases and many others...

What to pay: quite expensive, but good quality

just go up to the 3rd floor and you will find everything you need, though it's not that easy to find good work and the biggest problem is to find some local crafts, cause everything is so mixed up, all things that i liked were or from Uzbekistan, or from India (India is definitely not close to Kazakhstan..) but at the end i found really nice colorful dolls made from felt and it was kazakh work for sure, also i advise you not to buy things made from leather or with leather on it, it's not processed correctly and has a specific smell, first i liked some bottles with leather on it (useful for nomads i think)..but it smelled so badly...:(
was asking people from Almaty maybe they could advise any other shop to buy presents, but they all agreed about TSUM, maybe it's a bit expensive, but at least everything is at one place and if you dont have much time to spend on shopping..sounds reasonable!

What to buy: these colorful and comfortable felt slippers to wear at home (must be so warm in it in winter!)

What to pay: not cheap at all, that's surprising compared to average prices for everything in Almaty

TSUM
also
shops in Kasteeva Museum
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a small shop on Panfilova street

What to buy: Kilim is a type of Central Asian rug, and Kazakh rugs are known for their ancient ethnic design. There are many shops in Almaty,where you can get beautiful kilims you can take back home with you . Some kilims are light, others heavy, do consider the weight when you buy. Its best to take along a local with you, as kilims do not have a fixed price, and we managed to trade down to a half of the oriinally requested price. Note that in Europe kilims sometimes cost ten times the Kazakhstani price.

What to pay: anything from $10 to $600 or higher, depeding on the size, texture, and your bargaining skills!

There are many places where you can buy your stuff in Almaty. Either street vendors, fancy supermarkets or local grocerie stores also neighborhood markets.

At the moment i was there, $50USD=6765KZT

What to pay: Here i make you a list of things I bought during my stay either on the streets or in supermarkets, restaurants, taxis expensies etc:

internet: 320T
passport copy: 115T
taxi: 100T
water:50T also 65T
2 cheese pastry: 80T
city bus: 15T
bus almaty-medeu: 30T
ice-cream: 50T
water silk way city 1l: 59T
tomato beens can silk way city: 75T
govinda's restaurant full meal: 850T
chocolate bar snickers: 55T
Govindas lite meal: 300T
phone card: 800T
music tape 150T
cheese pastry: 45T
500ml kefir: 50T
street milkshake: 100T
chocolate bar silk way city: 95T
water 5l silk way city: 126T
cheese silk way city: 61T
salad 250gr. silk way city: 26T
juice silk way city 250ml mago: 29T
300g bananas: 78T
500gr cheese: 286T
bread silk way city: 66T
bus almaty->turkistan: 950T
pizza margerita cafe perekrectok: 450T
juice cafe perekrectok: 195T
tram almaty: 25T
kazakh hat barakholka: 100T
iran visa: 55USD
uzbekistan visa: 55USD

i think that with this you have a full idea of the prices in Almaty.