Siab bazaar is situated on a big square before Bibi-Khanim Mosque near to the main city gates. Siab bazaar is the biggest and the most ancient bazaar in the city. It offers plenty of fruits and vegetables grown at the fertile Zarafshan valley. Pyramids of water-melons and melons, haversacks with walnuts, raisins and kuraga – dried apricots, bunches of grapes and tempting hillocks of figs are attracting sweet tooth peoples here. Red sided apples and fragrant pears lays on the shelves near to the peeled fruits of pomegranates. There is a smell of spices in the air like: pepper and saffron, cardamom and nutmeg, zira and caraway. There are several shelves with special local sweet – salted apricot stones baked in the ashes. And, of course, there is a stall of flat cakes – lepeshkas offering nearly seventeen types of golden Samarkand bread.
There are families in Samarkand – from Gala-Osiyo village, which are hereditary masters of flat cakes baking. It’s considered, that the cakes baked in special ceramic stoves – tandirs stoked with stems of cotton, lepeshkas of osiogi-non type will be the most delicious and fragrant. Such bread can serve as a good souvenir from Samarkand because it does not lose its appetizing appearance and even taste value.
