The article analyzes the phenomenon of ethnic markets through the lens of the specific contact language (“bazaar Pidgin”), arising and used in the process of communication between traders and customers. The paper is based on a comparison of a peculiarity of “Chinese” markets in Russia and “Russian” market Yabaolu in China. The authors demonstrate that these markets reproduce similar communicative sphere. The article demonstrates that a language, performing the communicative function, marks non ethic basis of “ethnic” market, defining it as a border contact space. Based on a comparative analysis authors note that “bazaar pidgin” bear resemblance to contact Russian-Chinese frontier. The authors comes to the conclu-sion that the language, fixed in space markets of Irkutsk and Beijing, creates a situation, reproducing a num-ber of practices, which are typical for the cross-border contacts. These practices realize at a considerable distance from the state borders outside the legal and social context of the borderland. Based on this conclu-sion, the authors, that the change of the contact language of market is a good marker for fixation and analysis of changes in transboundary systems and streams, intersecting at the “ethnic” markets.