SibTourGuide.com - Krasnoyarsk, Siberia souvenir shopping

What to bring from Krasnoyarsk - Shopping

Besides your impressions, good memories and nice pictures of your visit to Siberia, you will probably want to get some souvenirs and neat stuff. Being a local tour guide, I have ideas of what visitors of our city like to get. If you are interested in impressing your friends, relatives, colleagues or bosses, then please take a shopping tour around the city.

Krasnoyarsk’s shopping industry is growing and has been changing with the city. There are more and more stores accepting plastic cards such as Visa, MasterCard, EuroCard etc, most do not accept American Express. The majority of shops accept only rouble cash, but in a few places you can manage to pay in U.S. dollars. You can get food in numerous Western-style supermarkets. But if we are talking about neat stuff, you can get that only in Krasnoyarsk local stores.

Charoite. Matryoshkas - Paintings. Icons

The best place for souvenir shopping is at the “Diana” shop. All visitors are interested in the Matryoshka dolls. The “Diana” offers a variety of locally made Matryoshkas in different sizes, each Matryoshkas contains a different number of smaller dolls inside. Some have local scenary painted on there outsides while others have paintings of various churches. Also in the same section you can get birch bark carved hand-made boxes. In the stone section, don’t miss the Charoite stone. This stone is very special because it is found only in one place in the world, Siberia. This semiprecious stone is purple in color. They offer such items as rings, necklaces, beads, key-chains, letter openers, sharply made eggs, balls, curved bears, ashtrays and candleholders. These are really nice to bring from Siberia. Besides this, they sell many paintings from local artists. Some of those are painted on canvas, so you can ask them to frame it, or roll it to make it easier to travel with it. The price of a frame will be exclusive of. The shop offers old Russian icons, but you have to know that for traveling abroad you are required to have permission from the Ministry of Culture. Most of the icons are not value for the culture of the country. So for extra money, the shop might take care of the paperwork for the permission. They deal with the Krasnoyarsk’s office of the Ministry directly. But remember, you have to have a day in advance to allow the paperwork to be completed. So check your departure date, when you want to get an icon. From my experience, I can say, that after having prior permission, people went through the Russian customs without problems. I have just noted the most popular stuff, but if you go there, you’ll find much more local souvenirs. The prices here are lower than in Moscow for stuff like that.

Picture albums - Postcards - Map of the city

In bookstores you can find nice picture albums about Krasnoyarsk. Some of those are really nice and have texts in both languages, English and Russian. You can get a map of Krasnoyarsk and the area to mark your location for further script books, about your trip to Siberia. Also, they offer a variety of nice postcards with local sights such as churches, including the chapel from the 10-rouble, Trans Siberian Railroad Bridge, the most important attractions of the city and much more. If you want to mail one back home you should get a stamp and drop it into any mailbox.

Russian toys - Children's furniture

In the "Detskiy mir" (children’s universe) shop you can get a variety of Russian toys for your kids. Pay attention to something really neat. For only 300 roubles (about $10) they offer traditionally painted stools, chairs and tables as a children’s furniture. Some of these have detatchable legs, so in a packed position it makes it very compact for travelling.

Russian army and Krasnoyarsk’s militsia (police) souvenirs

Very special option for guys! In the army and hunting goods shop “Pokrov” you can find very interesting stuff. They sell all sorts of Russian Army and police uniform. If you visit this shop you may find real army and police badges, cockades of different troops and units of police and army. See the police badges with local names of local troops. You can find on arm-badges names such as “Krasnoyarsk”, “Krasnoyarski krai”, “Achinsk”, “Norilsk”, “Kansk”. The Russian internal forces are divided in sub-units according to a place of location. The symbol of siberian troops is a white bear. You can get those arm-badges with the white bear as well. Real army and police winter hats with cockades might be of interest to you. This stuff is available only in Krasnoyarsk. They sell everything in this shop including holsters and heavy army boots. Only weapons are not available here.

Fur hats. Hand - made warm mittens and socks

When you are in Krasnoyarsk, don’t miss visiting the open market. As well as most Russian cities Krasnoyarsk has several open markets. Do not try to find souvenirs in an open market. Since the city is not a popular destination yet, you will not find souvenirs. Most local people go there to buy food and clothes. Markets are open every day from 9 am to 5 pm all year round, but it is best go there from 10.30 am to 3.30 pm while the selection is at it’s best. While there, don’t forget to purchase something special for yourself.

Please pay attention to the wide range of fur hats. In winter (but they sell it year round) when the selection is big, there is different variety of cheap and fancy designed hats to choose from. The less expensive fur is rabbit (from 10 USD) and the most expensive is mink (up to 250 USD). There are also beautiful hats made from fur of marmot, raccoon, red fox, polar fox, black fox and nutria. But if you are interested in really fancy, exclusive, stylish and fashionable stuff you will need to go to a fur salon, where local wealthy people go. Prices there will be higher than on the open market.

Siberian winter is cold and is a good time for business of “babushkas” (old women). They sell hand bound mittens, socks and shawls from fluff. Don’t worry animals were not killed. They brush their fur, get fluff and spin it to sewing. The most common material is fluff from goat, angora and dog’s fur. They are very warm and soft.

Local vodka. Cedar nuts

Since vodka taxes are one of the most important income items of Russia’s budget, it is produced in each region. Most of these taxes flow to the local budget of the place where it was produced. This enables local authorities to take care of local vodka producers. Almost each region has local vodka producers supported by authorities policy. If you purchase vodka in a supermarket, the quality will be good. Be sure you purchase local vodka brands. There are several vodka producers in Krasnoyarsk and the region. As the quality is similar, you can choose different design of a bottle and name of a sort. They offer vodka in interesting designed bottles such as snowman, rifle in a case with small bottles made as cartridges, woman shoe etc.

Cedar nuts grow in cones of cedar trees. Sometimes these nuts are called pine nuts. But Siberian cedars grow only in Siberia. On an open market you can get cones filled with nuts, just as it comes from a tree. You can save such a cone as a souvenir from Siberia. Cones are dry and will last forever reminding you of the days when you were in Krasnoyarsk. You can also get hulled nuts in shells or even roasted nuts. Nuts without shell and packed are available in supermarkets, you can taste them and bring some home.

Birch bark boxes

Amber

<<< Previous tour
Back to the tours&excursions
list

Next tour >>>