The new concept for the fair was chosen very well; Its builder, engineer Betancourt, was also successfully chosen, one of the three French engineers given to Alexandre G. by Napoleon T. Chelovfi, undoubtedly talented and extremely intelligent, a practitioner of which there were few at that time, Betancourt masterfully drew up a design for the buildings and brilliantly carried it out (being, unfortunately, as talented as he had wide appetites, before the very After the construction was completed, he was put on trial for theft! The fair, built by Betancourt, consisted of 60 buildings, occupying the area of a rectangle, which rests on one side on the Oka embankment, and on the other sides is limited by a canal that looks like a horseshoe. In addition, the following were built: a fair cathedral in the name of St. Macarius, an Armenian church, a Tatar mosque, the Main House for the governor with outbuildings for the administration and the house of the fair clergy. Since the area intended for the fair was flooded with water in the spring, Betancourt raised it. To drain the sewage, he installed underground pipes on the eastern and western sides, which are cleaned with water from the canal surrounding the fair. Water is piped into it from Lake Meshcherskoye, and its final outlet from the pipes is the Oka River. Thus, the canal water has two purposes: to clean underground galleries and to deliver abundant funds for extinguishing fires. The entire construction of the fair then cost 191/mil. rub. assig.
Subsequently, the fairs turned out to be insufficient and the fair rows began to spread beyond the bypass canal along two directions: to the station and to the Volga. Currently, the area occupied by the fair is more than three times larger than the space built up by Vetancourt. In addition to the various fair buildings that were built again, there are now also: a new fair cathedral, an extremely beautiful new (instead of the old) Main House, which fulfills its main purpose - to serve the needs of the administration, and another thing: to serve directly for trade; its first floor is like a vast hall-passage with many shops opening into it, which provide very significant rental income during the fair.
To talk in detail about the Nizhny Novgorod fair, about the type and nature of the trade produced during it, about the type and nature of the goods brought for November is not included in our program. Let's just say one thing: the significance of this fair for our trade and industry is enormous. Not only the whole of Rosaya trades there, but also the vast region of the East. Walking through the fairs, you will meet not only Russians, Germans, French, English, but also Persians, Khivans, Bukharans, Armenians and Chinese. Without visiting the Nizhny Novgorod fair, without plunging into this seething pool, one cannot imagine to what extent the diversity of types, costumes and dialect that fill it can reach. Of course, there is no need to say that trade Moscow is moving to the Nizhny Novgorod Fair almost completely: the signs of all the companies that trade not only in Kitai-Gorod, but throughout Moscow, flash into your eyes at the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. To understand the extent to which the venue was successfully chosen this time for the All-Russian Volzhekaya Fair, it is enough to cite a few examples showing its growth over the decades. In 1848, the supply of goods to the fair amounted to 47.9 million. rub. (translated into silver rubles), in
View from the Kremlin.
Phototimirafeya S.V. Bulizhenko vv Vevt.
Slyane Volga and Oka on tap.
lower
In 1858 it already reached 68.5 million. rubles, in 1868 we have 109 mil. rub. in 1873 it reached 1584 mil. rub.; by the next year it had risen to 180.2 million. rub., by 1880 it reached 200.4 mil. rubles, and in 1881 it amounted to 246.2 mil. r. In the future, if it gains momentum and does not continue to progress in the same way, then the significance of the fair for Russian trade certainly did not decrease from this. There is hardly any need for further conclusions from these figures; They speak for themselves. Let us add only one thing: the population of Nizhny Novgorod, which in normal times amounts to 80 thousand inhabitants, significantly exceeds 300 thousand people during the fair; and not all of this huge surplus is the constantly remaining number of fair people: in part it consists of those fair people who come today and leave tomorrow, and new ones replace them, in addition to the traders who constantly remain throughout the entire fair.