If you want to buy souvenirs or traditional Russian arts and crafts, Изма́йлово is a place that you must not miss. This is the biggest flea market where you can find all sorts of souvenirs for reasonable prices in Moscow. Vendors there will be likely to ask for higher prices when you are a foreigner. But bargaining is perfectly acceptable there: a 10% discount is almost guaranteed, and the process of bargaining is sometimes very fun.
I have been to Изма́йлово for three times in total during my stay in Russia. The first two times were at the beginning of the program, and the last time was on the second last day I was in Moscow. I saw a significant improvement in my ability to communicate with the vendors and bargain for prices.
The most popular Russian souvenirs are obviously nested dolls. Prices of nested dolls range very widely, as machine-made dolls are super cheap while hand-made dolls by famous artists can reach hundreds of dollars.
Besides some traditional souvenirs, you can also find many interesting products there, such as old photographs or student IDs, and some very nice Orthodox artifacts which unfortunately cannot be brought out of the country due to laws for protection of cultural heritage. There is one booth that sells bear fur, which is very impressive. I asked the price for the biggest one, and the seller said 1 million roubles, which is equivalent to around $17,000 dollars.
In Изма́йлово, there is also a really nice restaurant that sells Шашлык, a very common and popular Georgian food. This is actually my favorite in Russia. Honestly there is not that much delicious food in Russia (at least to me personally), and Georgian food is definitely one of the best. I will write more about Russian food in my next post.
