Yerevan shopping runs on two currencies: haggling at Vernissage over Karabakh carpets and Soviet cameras, and fixed-price polish on Northern Avenue. Between them sit obsidian jewellery, apricot-wood carvings and dried fruit sold by the kilo.
Yerevan's sprawling weekend flea market along Aram and Buzand streets. Roughly 500 stalls of Karabakh and Armenian carpets, khachkar replicas, Soviet badges, film cameras, backgammon boards and obsidian. Busiest Sat-Sun 09:00-16:00; a thinner weekday version runs on the book and art rows.
The covered produce hall locals still call GUM. Pyramids of sun-dried apricots, walnut-stuffed sujukh strings, basturma, spice piles and homemade fruit vodka in reused bottles. Vendors push free tasting samples at every stall. Open daily roughly 08:00-19:00.
The flagship of the Armenian rug revival house on Tumanyan Street, weaving hand-knotted wool designs from restored village patterns. Staff will walk you through knot density, vegetable dyes and the workshop villages, and arrange international shipping and export paperwork.
A small Kentron design shop stocking work by contemporary Armenian makers: obsidian and silver jewellery, ceramic tiles with Armenian script, pomegranate motifs and screen-printed textiles. Everything is made in-country and labelled with the maker's studio.
The pedestrian boulevard cut from Abovyan to Republic Square in 2007, lined with tuff-faced ground-floor retail: international labels, Armenian designers and jewellery windows. Marble underfoot, no cars, and cafés spilling onto the strip until late.
Armenia is a diamond-cutting and goldsmithing hub, and the stretch of Abovyan Street north of Republic Square is where that trade meets retail. Dozens of small workshops sell 585 and 750 gold, garnet and Armenian-cut stones, often made up on request in a few days.
A 19th-century courtyard house turned gallery, shop and café. The rooms sell contemporary Armenian painting, ceramics, handmade paper and jewellery, and the arched passage — the dalan it is named for — opens onto a quiet garden courtyard away from the street.
Yerevan's independent bookshops cluster around Abovyan and Mashtots. Bookinist stocks Armenian-language literature, English translations of Charents and Narekatsi, plus art books, Armenian alphabet posters and map reproductions that pack flat in a suitcase.
The quieter western end of the market near Hanrapetutyan Street, where the old-book, coin, stamp and vinyl dealers set up even midweek. Soviet-era Armenian film posters, Yerevan city maps from the 1960s and hand-cut wooden khachkars change hands here.
The factory shop at the Ararat plant above the Hrazdan gorge sells the full age range including bottlings you will not find in supermarkets, plus gift tubes and export-ready packaging. Duty-free allowances and shipping rules are posted at the counter.
The city's largest enclosed mall in the Shengavit district: three levels of international chains, a Carrefour hypermarket for cheap dried fruit and Armenian wine, a food court and cinema. Air-conditioned refuge when the summer valley heat passes 38C.
Saryan Street's wine-bar strip doubles as a craft row after dark: small shops selling Areni wine, mulberry vodka, honey from Syunik, ceramic pomegranates and hand-embroidered Marash-stitch linens, most open until 21:00 or later alongside the bars.