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| Moscow Guide 2007-09-15 01:19:44 |
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Moscow’s Elite Markets
07.06.2007 By Claire Auerbach
Moscow has no shortage of high-end supermarkets; brightly lit, Western-style places where you can find everything from American peanut butter to French marmalade. But if you’re the type of person who loves the smell of fresh, homemade cheese right out of the barrel, if you can’t walk by a stack of shiny red tomatoes without giving one a squeeze, if you love to be surrounded by the hum of commerce and the goods of distant lands, then you might want to pay a visit to one of Moscow’s many food markets, or rynoks. Whether you’re after monstrously large tomatoes from Uzbekistan, live crayfish and Chilean sea bass, a folk remedy for aching joints, or the mysterious purple Azerbaijani carrot, the markets have it all – and the prices are often negotiable. We’ve narrowed a long list down to five markets, each one vastly different from the next, all offering buyers a unique shopping experience and the best products in the city.
Dorogomilovsky
Once upon a time, Dorogomilovsky was a plain old market with an unusually good location – just around the corner from moneyed Kutuzovsky Prospekt, with its million dollar apartments, high-end shops and elite restaurants. Somebody put two and two together and turned the dowdy old rynok into a gastronomic boutique frequented by everyone from restaurant chefs to gourmands looking for a deal on live lobsters (there are several varieties, with an average price of 1,500 rubles per kilogram) to a haunch of lamb (180 rubles per kilogram).
Dorogomilovsky is a civilized market; sellers dress in uniforms signifying which departments they belong to, loaders with trolleys politely offer their services, women walk around in high heels, carrying little dogs in their purses. Lovers of Italian food come here for the row of stalls in the courtyard selling authentic Italian products, including capers, pink peppers, pesto, olive oil, rare Italian water mozzarella, butter, and rice pasta, as well as marinated artichokes (350-500 rubles per can). Nearby you will also find a large variety of sauces, including several varieties of authentic tabasco (165 rubles). In the dairy section, you can purchase homemade matsoni (a Georgian-style yogurt, great for digestion; 60 rubles per kilo), Georgian-style sulguni cheese (250 rubles per kilo) and many types of homemade farmer’s cheese (with raisins, lowfat, extra fat; 160 rubles per kilo). Olive lovers will be in heaven; there are several stalls here that specialize in olives alone. You can find as many as 20 different varieties (50-80 rubles per 100 grams), as well as olive paste and a large selection of olive oil.
Live fish are a specialty at Dorogomilovsky; some lay in pyramids on the ice, sparkling alluringly, others swim in their tanks. All types are available, from eel (1,300 rubles per kilo) to catfish (350 rubles per kilo), and every part of a freshly slaughtered pig, lamb or cow can be purchased here as well. Amid all of the exotica, there are rows and rows of vegetables, everything from picturesque Azerbaijani cherry tomatoes (220 rubles per kilo) to gigantic Podmoskovye cucumbers (120 rubles per kilo). The list can go on forever, but we’ll end on a sweet note – different kinds of honey can be bought here in small wooden barrels (350 rubles per kilo).
Danilovsky
 A very close second to Dorogomilovsky in terms of variety is the Danilovsky market, located near the Tulskaya metro station just outside the Garden Ring. Fruits and vegetables are the specialty here, and in the huge open-air vegetable market outside the rynok itself you’ll find plenty of varieties, some of them quite exotic. This is one of the few places in Moscow where you can find the mysterious Azerbaijani purple carrot, a sweeter, stouter ancestor of the orange variety, priced at 150 rubles per kilo. (Wild carrots actually come in many different colors; the Dutch chose the orange ones as a symbol of the House of Orange in the 17th century and they are now nearly ubiquitous in the West). You’ll also find Uzbek tomatoes as big as grapefruits (170 rubles per kilo), fennel (50 rubles per kilo) and delicious-smelling green string beans (350 rubles per kilo).
Under the cavernous, stadium-like dome of the market proper, there’s a tremendous variety of Uzbek dried fruits (120-200 rubles per kilo) and khashtaka, a Central Asian sweet made from dried apricots, chopped nuts and honey. The salty Uzbek cheese (220 rubles per kilo) is particularly tasty, and goes great with a freshly baked lepyoshka of crispy Uzbek bread (15 rubles each). There’s a good selection of crayfish here (400-500 rubles per kilo, depending on size) and veal (250 per kilo for ribs, 380 for boneless), and the cornelian cherry jam (500-700 rubles per liter) is an expensive proposition, but well worth the investment. Many of Danilovsky’s sellers don’t have fixed prices per se, and are very open to bargaining. There are also an unusual number of sellers that speak English.
Rizhsky
When most Muscovites – native as well as expat – need to make a major flower purchase, they go either to the row of flower shops on Gruzinsky Val, near Belorusskaya, or to the flower market near the Kievskaya metro station. While good deals can be found at either of those locations, the best, and most probably the cheapest, flora in Moscow is for sale at the Rizhsky market. Massive, bell shaped tulips of every color go for only 20 rubles per stem here, daffodils and irises start at 100 rubles for fifty stems, hyacinths at 35 rubles, and delicate Podmoskovye roses for 30 rubles.
There is plenty more here besides flowers, of course, although the meat and fish section is a bit overpriced. You can find some very good smoked sulguni (150-250 rubles per kilo) in both its braided and stringy forms in the market’s middle row, and this is also a good place to buy navot, or Uzbek crystal sugar (120 rubles per bag).
Preobrazhensky
 If you’re looking for traditional Russian products and herbs, there’s no better place than the far-flung Preobrazhensky market, located in the wilds of northeastern Moscow. Crammed as it is between a church and a cemetery, this outdoor market does a brisk trade in wreaths, flowers and monuments. In keeping with the cemetery theme, there’s a well-known booth called “The Last Supper,” where you can buy poison – for roaches, mice and other pests. The fruits and meats are not worth the trip, but the toweringly stacked homemade halvah (many varieties, 60 rubles per kilo) certainly is, as is the bacon (150-250 rubles per kilo). There are also some interesting vegetables here, among them kohlrabi and root celery (50 rubles per kilo) and some excellent pickles (60 rubles per kilogram).
The real reason to come here, however, is a ramshackle stall made to look like the cottage of the fairy tale witch Baba Yaga, located near the entrance of the meat pavilion. Here you’ll find dozens of herbal elixirs for everything from joint pains to upset stomach to impotence, made by the shop’s owner, an eccentric old lady named Nina. Other, less extravagant stalls selling similar wares can be found around the market as well.
Leningradsky
Finally, the Leningradsky market stands out for two things: there’s an outstanding dairy section, with divine homemade cheeses (200 rubles per kilo and up), a large selection of cheese pastries (300 rubles per kilo) and homemade farmer’s cheese (130-150 rubles per kilo). And this is a great place for buying authentic Uzbek souvenirs, such as colorful robes (7,000 rubles), hats (6,000 rubles) and ornate, hand-painted tea sets (3,000 rubles for a 6-person set).
 Dorogomilovsky
10 Mozhaisky Val, 249-5553, 7am-8pm.
M. Kievskaya.
Danilovsky
74 Mytnaya Ul., 954-1272, 8am-7pm, Sun. 8am-6pm. M. Tulskaya.
Leningradsky
11 Chasovaya, 151-0551,
7am-7pm, Sun. 7am-6pm.
M. Aereroport.
Preobrazhensky
17 Preobrazhensky Val, 161 0328,
8am-7pm, Sat. 8am-6pm.
M. Preobrazhenskaya Ploshchad.
Rizhsky
88 Prospekt Mira, 631 4295,
7am-7:30 pm, Sun. 7am-6pm.
M. Rizhskaya.
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