Siberia and the exile system . course, in coming to the con-clusion that he is on the site of the famous fair; but thefirst realization of the fact that the fair is in itself a sepa-rate and indei3endent city, and a city that during nine monthsof every year stands empty and deserted, comes to him withthe shock of a great surprise. The fair-city of Nizhni Novgorod is situated on a lowpeninsula between the rivers Oka and Volga, just abovetheir junction, very much as New York City is situated onManhattan Island between East River and the geographical position it bears the same relation
Siberia and the exile system . course, in coming to the con-clusion that he is on the site of the famous fair; but thefirst realization of the fact that the fair is in itself a sepa-rate and indei3endent city, and a city that during nine monthsof every year stands empty and deserted, comes to him withthe shock of a great surprise. The fair-city of Nizhni Novgorod is situated on a lowpeninsula between the rivers Oka and Volga, just abovetheir junction, very much as New York City is situated onManhattan Island between East River and the geographical position it bears the same relation to theold town of Nizhni Novgorod that New York would bear toJersey City if the latter were elevated on a steep, terracedbluff four hundred feet above the level of the Hudson. TheRussian fair-city, however, differs from New York City inthat it is a mere temporary market — a huge commercialcaravansardi where 500,000 traders assemble every year tobuy and to sell commodities. In September it has fre- FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO PERM. THK FAIR-CITV OF MZHNI NOVGOROD. quently a population of more than 100,000 souls, and con-tains merchandise valued at $75,000,000; while in January,February, or March all of its inhabitants might be fed andsheltered in the smallest of its hotels, and all of its goodsmight be put into a single one of its innumerable life, therefore, is a sort of intermittent commercial fever,in which an annual paroxysm of intense and unnatural ac-tivity is followed by a long interval of torpor and stagna-tion. It seems almost incredible at first that a city of such mag-nitude — a city that contains churches, mosques, theaters,markets, banks, hotels, a merchants exchange, and nearlyseven thousand shops and inhabitable buildings, shouldhave so ephemeral a hfe, and should be so completely aban-doned every year after it has served the purpose for whichit was created. When I saw this unique city for the firsttime, on a clear frosty night in January, 1868, it presen
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectsiberiarussiadescrip
