The article attempts to analyze the problem of commercialization of the images of the past in modern culture. The conclusion is made that it is necessary to speak about the value of the past from several angles at once – not only from the point of view of the conformity of the created objects or senses to their ontological substrate, but also from the position of the social distribution of the created images of the past, their involvement in the logic of the processes taking place in the modern public space. The conclusion is drawn that the process of production of the past ceases to be linearly directed, turning into a network interaction of different actors, which includes not only the state as the main "customer" of the images of the past, but also economic entities, as well as consumers who actively participate in modification of the produced product. The authors note that the essential factor is the totality of commercialization, combined with the formation of individual and local segments of symbolic production and consumption of the past. With the termination of the dominance of printed capitalism (B. Anderson), the space for selling and consuming the past and its images today can be characterized not so much with the help of the metaphor "market" as with the metaphor "bazaar."