Siab Bazaar, Samarkand: what to buy and taste, and how to visit

Siab is Samarkand’s largest bazaar: more than seven hectares, with seven large covered pavilions of long counters and more pavilions of shops around them. The main entrance is a triple arch faced with blue majolica. The name comes from the Siab, the “black water” stream that runs below the old city hill of Afrasiyab.

Trade has been at home here for a long time. In 1404 the Castilian envoy Clavijo watched Timur’s builders cut a new street of shops through the heart of Samarkand: shops on both sides, a roof of domes with windows for light, fountains along the way, and the whole street finished in twenty days. That street is gone, but the habit of trading in the centre, next to the Friday mosque Timur began in 1399, has stayed. The Registan is about a kilometre to the south, Shah-i-Zinda about 500 metres to the east and Afrasiyab about 2 km to the north.

Under the roofs, the counters are grouped by what they sell, so the bazaar is easy to read after ten minutes. In one hall you find fruit and vegetables in season, herbs and eggs by the tray; in another, dried fruit and nuts; then the sweet sellers, the spice sellers, dairy, meat, and the bread rows. Household goods and clothes have their own shops around the edge.

The covered halls keep you out of the sun in summer and out of the rain in autumn, which makes Siab a good plan for the hottest hour of the day. Entry is free.

Siab sells more than seventeen kinds of flatbread, and the one to buy is Samarkand non. It is baked on the wall of a clay tandir, denser and heavier than Tashkent bread, with a darker crust, a light sheen and a centre thinner than the rim. Some Samarkand dough ferments for 12–13 hours, where ordinary dough needs a few. In 2022 the city baked about 15,000 of these loaves a day, and since February 2025 “Samarkand non” has been a protected geographical indication.

This bread keeps for a long time, which is why travellers carry it home to other cities and abroad: sprinkle a dry loaf with water and warm it for a few minutes. The city’s favourite story about it, the khan of Bukhara and the baker who could not take the air of Samarkand with him, is in our legends of Samarkand. How non is baked and the customs around it are in Uzbek bread, non.

The sweet rows are where Siab is at its most generous. Samarkand halva looks more like a cake: a round, decorated with nuts and dried fruit, traditionally bought for weddings and engagements. It holds up in the summer heat, so it sits on open counters all day, and it is sold by weight.

Next to it hang threads of navat, amber crystals of sugar grown from grape juice and sugar syrup. People here drop a piece into their tea instead of a spoonful of sugar, and since navat is hard and light, it is one of the easiest presents to pack. Look also for parvarda, small pillows of pulled sugar candy dusted with flour. More on all of them, and on what survives the flight, is in Uzbek sweets and desserts.

When: trading starts at first light and quietens towards nightfall. Come in the morning, when the bread is fresh and the counters are full; in summer, the covered halls are the coolest place to be at midday.

The walk: from the Registan, follow the pedestrian street for about ten minutes to Bibi-Khanym. Visit the mosque, then cross to the bazaar beside it. From the far side of Siab, the Hazrat Khizr Mosque and Shah-i-Zinda are about 500 metres to the east, and Afrasiyab with its museum is a short taxi ride to the north: see the Afrasiyab Museum.

How long: an hour to walk through and taste, two if you want to shop. Bring a bag of your own.

To walk it with someone who knows the sellers, book a walking tour of Samarkand with a guide. For a whole trip built around food, our culinary tour Taste of the Road gives a Samarkand morning to Siab, its bread and its halva.