Nuni-Novgorod

NUNI-NOVGOROD (renamed, 1932, Goma), chief town of province Nijni-Novgorod, R.S.F.S.R., at the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers in 56° 24' N., E. Pop. 451,500. The city owes its importance to its position at the junction of the navigable rivers between which, to the west of it, was the flourish ing Moscow region, though the development of its trade, at first mainly in furs, was much hampered by Tatar raids, which did not cease until the second half of the 16th century. After the last raid in 1536 it became a depot for goods brought from the south-east, and the conquest of Kazan in 1552 and of Astrakhan in 1556 opened free navigation on the Volga. The thick forests of the district provided material for shipbuilding and a yearly "caravan" of boats under military protection began to carry the products of Moscow and the north to the Caspian and to return laden with the products of the south and east.

The Fair.

From remote antiquity Russian merchants were wont to meet in summer with those from the east at different places on the Volga between the mouths of the eastward flowing Oka and the westward flowing Kama, the fair changing its site with the increasing or decreasing power of the nationalities which struggled for the possession of the Middle Volga. Bolgari, Nijni Novgorod, Kazan and Vasilsursk have been successively the site of the fair since the loth century. From 1641 its seat was at a monastery 55 m. below Nijni and close to Makaryev; this situa tion later proved inconvenient, and after the destruction of the shops by fire, the fair was transferred to Nijni in 1817 and has remained there ever since.

The long distances in Russia, the poor network of communica tions, the seasonal nature of production and river transport, the dependence of the peasant on handicrafts as a supplement to agriculture, the close link between Russia and the Orient, are some of the factors which have tended to preserve the importance of fairs as a medium of exchange and barter. In the more industrial ized regions of the south and west, with their better railway facilities and higher level of literacy, fairs are gradually dying out, but in other regions they are still of the greatest importance for home trade. The state grants special customs exemptions to

goods destined for the Nijni fair and gives cheaper transport facilities and special credits to traders. Products of the peasant home industries from every region in which they are at all developed are increasingly taking an important place in the fair.

Until the '8os Russian manufacturers depended largely on barter trade in tea from Kiakhta and its price at the fair regulated output. Later the price of raw cotton and madder from Asia at the fair influenced the output of the growing textile industry of the central productive region. The owners of the iron works in the Ural district sent "caravans" of boats laden with iron goods to Nijni, where the purchases of iron made for Asia and Middle Russia determined the amount of credit on which they could depend for the next year's work. Similarly the corn and salt trade of the south and the general trade of Siberia and Turkistan depended on the prices obtaining at the fair.

The fair reached its highest development between 1880 and 1884, when the turnover was 21.5 million pounds. In 1910 the turnover was 15.9 million pounds. During the 1914-1922 war and civil war, the trade of Nijni was interrupted, and when the fair re-opened in 1923, conditions had altogether changed. Private trade, though not entirely suppressed, had been markedly reduced and the various State Trading Departments and local goods exchanges had taken over much of the regulation between supply and demand, formerly largely dependent on the fair. Only 647 firms took part in the 1923 fair and the turnover was small, but trade has gradually adapted itself to the changed conditions and in 1927 the turnover was 20.3 million pounds, and the number of firms taking part was 2,549.