Andar Shehr, Peshawar: The Old City's Jewellery Street

Andar Shehr is the lane of gold and silver shops in the middle of Peshawar's walled city, close to Chowk Yadgar. Locally it is also called Sarafa Bazar, and it is where Peshawar buys and sells jewellery: rows of small shops with gold in the window, weighing scales on the counter, and craftsmen working in back rooms. You don't need to be buying to walk through it; it is one of the old city's most concentrated single-trade bazaars.

This guide covers what the bazaar sells, how the gold trade here actually works, its setting in the old city, and how to visit it as someone who isn't there to shop.

What Andar Shehr is

"Andar Shehr" means, roughly, the inner city, and older Peshawaris use it for the walled city as a whole. In everyday use today, and for visitors, it means one thing specifically: the sarafa, the jewellers' lane, where shop after shop sells gold and silver. It sits a short walk from Chowk Yadgar, between Qissa Khwani Bazaar and the Mahabat Khan Mosque, in the thick of the old city's bazaars.

How the gold trade works here

Gold in Andar Shehr is sold by weight against the day's rate, which the city's jewellers' association sets and shops display or quote on request. Ornaments range from plain wedding sets to heavily worked pieces with stones, and several shops will make a design to order if you bring a pattern or describe what you want. Silver is sold the same way, in smaller, cheaper pieces.

Workshops sit behind or above many of the shops, where the actual goldsmithing happens: melting, casting, setting stones and polishing. It is a trade passed down within families, and many of the shops have been run by the same names for generations.

If you are buying:

• Buy from an established shop, not a stall, and ask for a receipt that states the weight, the purity (22 or 24 karat) and the price paid.
• Check the day's gold rate before you go in, so you can judge what you're being quoted.
• Making charges are separate from the gold price itself and are usually negotiable on made-to-order pieces.
• Don't carry the finished piece around the old city afterwards. Have it wrapped and put it away.

Our guide to shopping in Peshawar covers the rest of the old city's trades, from chappals to carpets, alongside this one.

The setting

Andar Shehr sits inside the densest part of the walled city, a network of narrow lanes that has changed shape less than almost anywhere else in Peshawar. A short walk away, in Dhaki Munawar Shah, is Kapoor Haveli, the house where the Indian actor Raj Kapoor was born in December 1924, before his family moved to Bombay. It's a detour worth making if you're already in the area, more for the sense of the old city's mixed past than for what remains to see.

The Mahabat Khan Mosque, one of Peshawar's best-known Mughal-era buildings, is a few minutes further on, and Qissa Khwani, the storytellers' bazaar, is the main route in from Chowk Yadgar.

How to walk it

Andar Shehr is small enough to see properly in twenty or thirty minutes, and it works best as part of a longer walk through the old city rather than a destination on its own. Go in the late morning, once the shops are open and the lanes have some daylight in them but before the afternoon crowds build.

• Look, don't linger with a phone out. Photographing a shop's open display of gold is not welcome; ask first if you want a picture at all.
• Keep bags and phones close. It's a crowded, narrow lane, like the rest of the old city bazaars.
• Women will find it, like most of the old city's bazaars, a mostly male space; it's easiest with family or in a group.
• Combine it with Qissa Khwani and Chowk Yadgar rather than making a special trip. Our old Peshawar walking tour and one-day Peshawar itinerary both route past it.

Is it safe to visit?

Andar Shehr sits inside the same old city covered by the rest of Peshawar's sightseeing, and the everyday risk is the ordinary crowding and pickpocketing of a busy bazaar rather than anything specific to the jewellery trade. The wider picture is more serious: as of September 2026 the UK government advises against all travel to Peshawar, and Pakistani visitors should still check local news and current police advice before setting out, particularly around Friday prayers or any planned gathering nearby. Our guide to whether Peshawar is safe sets out the current situation in full, including what overseas visitors should know about their own government's advice and travel insurance.

Frequently asked questions