The famous Pryvoz Market, located at 14 Pryvozna Street, is the largest food market in Odessa, Ukraine.

Vendor at Privoz Market

Privoz began in 1827, when wares were sold from the back of horse driven carts.

Privoz adjoined the Stary (old) bazaar (also called the Volny (free) market) the first bazaar in Odessa. Gradually more buildings were constructed as the city grew.

In the 1940s zoo animals were moved from the Odessa zoo to Simferopol. Four-year-old elephant Murza (Мурза) escaped. It ran to the fruit section of the Pryvoz Market and ate several apples, pulled out pickled cucumbers from a barrel, tasted some fresh cabbage and dried fruits. Murza was caught and returned to the zoo. A popular Soviet comedy film, Striped Trip was inspired by this incident.

A western journalist explained his visit to the market:

“ I headed over to Pryvoz Market, which is sort of like a cross between a department store on the one hand and a recycling center on the other. There's caviar, shoes, accessories, food, perfume, toiletries, things like that. And then there are the guys selling things like rusty old tools laid out on moth-eaten blankets. Or the old school five and a quarter inch floppy disk drives. There's even somebody selling wheels, just wheels, including a matching set of three that were obviously taken from a perambulator at some point.

Privoz was also mentioned in The Odessa Tales of Isaak Babel.

“ Moi sieur Jason, you are as scary as Monya the Artellerist firing out of two guns. I'd rather go to aunt Pece at Pryvoz and would buy a glass of sunflower seeds as you painfully interestingly 'goutareetye'.