Empty shipping containers are commonly used as market stalls and warehouses in the countries of the former USSR.The biggest shopping mall or organized market in Europe is made up of alleys formed by stacked containers, on 170 acres (69 ha) of land, between the airport and the central part of Odessa, Ukraine. Informally named "Tolchok" and officially known as the Seventh-Kilometer Market it has 16,000 vendors and employs 1,200 security guards and maintenance workers.

The independent traders on the market sell goods in all price ranges, from authentic merchandise to all sorts of cheap Asian consumer goods, including many counterfeit Western luxury goods.

According to the impressions of S. L. Myers of the New York Times who visited the market in 2006, "the market is part third-world bazaar, part post-Soviet Wal-Mart, a place of unadulterated and largely unregulated capitalism where certain questions - about salaries, rents, taxes or last names - are generally met with suspicion."

And Zerkalo Nedeli wrote in 2004 that"it is a state within a state, with its own laws and rules. It has become a sinecure for the rich and a trade haven for the poor."