But among the people, the name Kök Bazaar stuck more. In the 1940s, the bazaar consisted of long, rectangular rows of canopies with wooden stalls. The bazaar also sold live cattle, dairy products, apples of the Almaty Aport variety. Fruits and vegetables were brought from the neighboring collective farms. During World War II, the bazaar was the only place where it continued to sell goods for money, and not give out by cards. But the prices were very high due to the war. In the 1970s, the wooden market was demolished. In its place, in 1975, a covered building appeared in the style of brutalism. The main architect of the project was Mark Pavlov. The bazaar was designed as a structure of several levels. The main pavilion had 800 seats, the summer market had 200 seats, and the parking lot had 400 cars. In 2017, a new shopping pavilion was built on the site of container pavilions and open trade counters, where an open market parking was located until the early 2000's. The pavilion area is about 20,000 square meters. Half of which is occupied by retail space and 10,000 sq. m., two-level car parking for 400 spaces. The project cost amounted to 2.5 billion tenge, with more than 500 jobs being created. Since February 2021, "Social shops" have been opened to sell socially significant food products at reduced prices, such as potatoes, carrots, onions, cabbage, sugar, buckwheat, sunflower oil, rice, horns, flour. In September 2021, a press tour was organized for 40 bloggers and journalists from Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Korea, UAE, Hong Kong. Cultural references Kök Bazaar is featured in the espionage novel Performance Anomalies, by Victor Robert Lee, set in Kazakhstan. The bazaar was also featured on The Amazing Race 13, The Amazing Race Norge 1, and The Amazing Race 32. See also Almaty External links The green bazaar is noisy References Bazaars