Baku shopping runs on three currencies: saffron and sturgeon at Teze Bazar, hand-knotted Quba carpets in İçərişəhər lanes, and glass-tower luxury on Neftçilər. Bring cash for bazaars, cards for malls, and an export permit for anything woven before 1960.
Baku's biggest food market, two domed halls off Samad Vurgun Street. Vendors sell saffron by the gram (5-15 AZN), walnut jam, dried Caspian fish, sheep's cheese and pomegranate narsharab syrup. Opens 07:00 daily, busiest before 11:00.
A calmer produce and pantry market than Teze, strong on nuts, halva, sumac, dried fruit and vacuum-packed sturgeon products. Stalls hand out samples freely and most vendors will vacuum-seal spices for flying home.
The rolled-carpet-shaped museum on the Boulevard sells certified new weavings from Quba, Shirvan and Karabakh schools alongside kilim cushions and silk scarves. Staff issue the paperwork that lets you take a rug out of the country legally.
The lane inside the Old City wall where a handful of remaining ustas hammer trays, armudu tea glasses holders and ewers. You can watch the tinning process; pieces are stamped with the maker's mark and weighed to price.
Baku's pedestrianised shopping spine, running 3.5 km from Fountains Square west. Mango, Massimo Dutti, LC Waikiki and Azerbaijani label Zeynab Bagirova sit in restored oil-boom facades. Most shops 10:00-22:00 daily.
The compact luxury mall behind the Port Baku towers, with Gucci, Loro Piana and Aesop across two floors plus an excellent basement supermarket for caviar and Azerbaijani wine. Quieter than Park Bulvar and better air-conditioned.
Converted Soviet naval building on the bay whose shop stocks limited-run prints, ceramics and textiles by Azerbaijani artists — the strongest contemporary design buy in the city. Closed Mondays; open 12:00-20:00 otherwise.
Kelagayi — the UNESCO-listed Azerbaijani silk headscarf, block-printed with buta motifs and made in Basqal and Sheki. Shops around Fountains Square sell genuine hand-printed squares alongside cheap polyester copies.
Two 15th-century caravanserais whose arched cells now hold antique dealers selling Soviet-era pins, brass samovars, old Azerbaijani banknotes and tribal saddlebags. Sellers open around 10:00 and stay until dusk.
Legal farmed sturgeon caviar from Azerbaijani aquaculture, sold in sealed and labelled tins — the only kind you may legally carry out (125 g per person under CITES rules). Wild Caspian caviar offered on the street is illegal.
Wave-roofed mall on the Boulevard with 200 shops over four floors, an Azerbaijani-crafts level near the cinema, and a top-floor terrace over the Caspian. Open 10:00-23:00; the food court is a reliable rain fallback.
Small specialist bottle shops a block off Fountains Square stocking Azerbaijani wine from Shamakhi and Ganja, pomegranate wine, and Sheki halva boxed for travel — the pantry souvenirs that survive a suitcase best.