LARGEST FAIR IN THE WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 198, 25 September 1909, Page 4

LARGEST FAIR IN THE WORLD.

Long before Columbus discovered America Russia was holding her great market at Nijni Novgorod, for history tells us that the first fair was held there in 1300. Since that time each year men and "women have gathered from all parts of Europe and Asia U >; offer their wares at this Russian market. The fair, which covers eight square miles, is a town in itself. The church belonging to the fair is particularly beautiful, and was built to mark the ?pot of the meeting of the two great rivers. Its domes are heavily coated with gold, and may be seen for miles. The ground occupied by the fair buildings is low and marshy, the paving vile, and the odour from mudholes nauseating. The business is conducted on Eastern principles. There is no fixed price everything U worth what it will fetch. A Tartar will ask twice as much as an article is worth,- and there is a sort of fascination in bargaining with him, and in the end you pay more for the article than it is worth. Everywhere one hears the click of the abacus—wooden beads on wires, such a* Ave learned to count ou as children.

The long, poorly lighted buildings are filled with merchandise of every description—German toys, cotton goods of every variety, umbrellas, Turkish silks, Persian carpets, tawdry jewellery, and famous Orenburg wool shawls, which are so soft they may be drawn through a lady's bracelet. Whole streets are 10-oted -oted to the sale of samovars, Russian imots and slippers fill many shops, anJ a square or two is devoted to thebaic of ikons. Fruits and hardware are sold On the river-front, and I saw hundre Is of bags of raisins on the wharf ready for shipment, writes Mr. R. C. Miller io Leslie's Weekly,

The greatest sight of the fair is the furs, for no country produces such a wealth of furs as the Land of the Bear. Several acres arc devoted to fur shops of every description. There are hundreds of bear skins, ranging in size and beauty from the huge polar and grizzlies to the soft, shiny coats of the cubs of the small black bear. Leopard and tiger skins are plentiful, and there are thousands of lynx and wolf skins, cart loads of tiny ermines and Russian squirrels, and bale upon bale of sables. In one place I actually walked for squares through bales of these precious sable skins. Persian lamb skins, too, were plentiful. '-» The fair npen9 in July and lasts until Septenile ■■ After that the unsold goods are sUircd, tents are struck, flags are furled, hotels arc barred up, the flover-nor-Gcueral goes 'back to his residence in the upcr town, the pontoon Tiridge across the river is removed, and the place is left to take care of itself. In early autumn the rains set in, the river rises, and the fair ground is soon under water. This freezes by the first of November, and Nijni's great market-place becomes a vast steppe of ice.