The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-05-06
A FAMOUS FAIR:
RUssIA,s COSMOPOLITAN MART
AT MINI NOvGOROD.
A PYace Where Merchants From
Every Cline Meet for CONNER
cial Exchange-The Town and
Its Bazaar-Tea Tipping.

The union of the Okla with the Volga,
both long and navigable rivers, makes
Mini Novgorod place of Importance
and mart of trade. The former river
runs eight hundred miles before it pours
into the Volga, anu the united streams
flow two thousand miles together before
they enter the Caspian Sea. By these
waterways the extreme north, the shores
of the White Sea and the Baltic, are
linked to the great southern countries of
Russia which lie upon the Black Sea,
Azof and the Caspian. It is not wonderful
that mercantile interest, ever keen to rec
ognize the value of position, should have
seized upon the junction of these two
great rivers for the establishment of an
international commercial exchange. As
early as the middle Of the fourteenth cen
tury Mini had its fair, but the present
bazaar, which is very extensive and elab-
crate, was built in 1924 to replace the
buildings destroyed by fire eight years
! before. The bazaar is built on the plain
of the northern bank of the Volga, q
huge sandy expanse, and consists of
long mass of houses, twelve long rows
arranged in regular lines, and divided
into four equal parts by transverse
streets. This is the centre or kernel of
the fair, which was erected and is still
owned by the Government. 1t contains
between five hundred and six hundred
shops. Beyond aud around this bazaar
are thousands of buildings of brick, wood
and mats, red and yellow and green in
color, aud stretching out in every direc-
ton.
The bazaar is surrounded on three sides
by canal crossed by number of bridges,
and on the fourth side there is an open
square, in which are the residences of the
Governor and the other officials. The
whole enclosure is thoroughly drained,
and these stone drains are flushed twice
day during the continuance of the fair.
Admirable arrangements are also made
for preventing and putting out fires, and
no one is allowed to smoke within the
limits of the fair.
Here are shops with the choicest, furs
from Siberia, silks from Persia and pre-
cious stones from the Oral Mountains, to-
gether with fancy goods from England,
Germany and France, gems from India,
and ornaments and perfumes from Con-
stantinople. The Chinese quarter has
queer look, its houses being oil builtwith
projecting roofs, with bells at the cor
ners, and covered with yellow paint and
gilded characters. Here are to be found
the offices of the great tea merchants
with their samples, the warehouses filed
with vast stores being on the Siberian
quay. Tea is the great staple of the fair.
Iron and silks and cotton aud Caucasian
goods have large place in the market,
but in spite Of the supply by water Of
Canton tea, the Kiakhta which comes six
thousands versts overland, and takes eigh-
teen months in transit, still rules at Mini.
We visited tea merchant and sampled his
tea. 1t is packed in case of lead, which is
protected by papered wooden chest,
which is again packed in strong cow
hide covering with the hair on. Our
shopkeeper had the cowhide covering
unfastened, and then with long steel
auger in which there were an oblong
groove and very sharp point, he bored
into the centre of the chest. When
pulled out the groove of the auger was
full of tea. A professional buyer tests
the tea by rolling the leaves in his fingers
and then smelling of them; sometimes
also he chews few leaves. We pre-
ferred to take our little package to
the hotel, and we found it q deliciously
favored black tea. The cost was less
than half dollar pound.
Tea drinking is the universal habit in
Russia. Ny guide in the Adirondacks
could never build his fire in the morning
till he had taken "chaw of terbacker";
and Sulieman upon the desert was good
for nothing before his coffee and pipe;
so my Russian servant, like all OF his
countrymen, swallowed hot tea as soou
as he awoke, and repeated the act a
dozen times day. Tea houses are as
common in St. Petersburg and Moscow
as SALOONS" are in New York or Chicago.
The "samovar" is the household god,
and no peasant is so poor as to be with
out one, though he may be destitute of
shoes and have no clothes besides those
which are upon his body. There are forty
makers of samovars in Toula alone, and
5000 dozens are sold in Mini every year.
The samovar is large urn made OF brass
or copper, with tube running through
the centre, in which charcoal is placed
and lighted. This burning charcoal, like
the sacred fire in the Jewish temple, is
never allowed to 60 out, and hence the
water around the tube is always hot.
The teapot stands upon the top OF the
samovar. A scoop of tea is put in the
teapot, the boiling water from the samo-
var is turned upon it; tie infusion is in
stantly poured into glass tumbler, and
o slice of lemon or lump of sugar IS
used as havoring by those who like it.
The majority of Russians use neither.
At all the railroad stations, in all the
streets and towns, at every hour of the
day and night, "tchai' was to be had,
even though bread or beer might be
wanting. The man in our party who
thought tea was only fit for only women
and would not drink it, learned, after
paying three rubles for bottle of ginger
ale and making himself i'll with poor
coffee and bad water and worse wine, to
swallow the national beverage without a
grimace, and also to like "the cup which
cheers but not inebriates," before he
| left the dominions of the Tsar. On the