Dezerter Bazaar

Dezerter Bazaar is Tbilisi's best-known central market, a few streets from Tbilisi Central Station and Station Square metro. Inside the main halls and the lanes around them, traders sell fresh fruit and vegetables, piles of herbs, spices and adjika, sulguni and other cheeses, meat, fish, honey, pickles, dried fruit and strings of churchkhela. Outside, stalls spill into the surrounding streets with clothes, hardware and household goods. It is busy and loud, and it shows how much of the city still shops for food.

Go in the morning, when produce is freshest and traders are setting out their stalls. Taste before you buy: sellers often offer samples of cheese, honey and churchkhela. You can bargain a little, especially on spices and dried fruit. It is a good place for edible souvenirs such as khmeli suneli spice mix, tkemali plum sauce, tea and churchkhela. Keep an eye on your bag in the crowds.

The market's name is usually traced to the early 1920s, when army deserters crowded the area around the railway station selling uniforms, weapons and other goods. The deserters soon disappeared, but the name Dezerter Bazaar stuck, and the market kept growing into one of the city's main places to buy food, both wholesale and retail.