The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-03
WORLDS GREATEST MARKET NfJNI NoVGOROD FAIR IN ITS
 OLD GLORY THIS FEAR.


 Fair Ground in a Mud Flat Along the
 VOIga-Picturesqu Dress of Attend
 ants.
 During the last two and a half years neither the German commercial travel CT nor his wares have had much chance to get along the Siberian rail- road. Now that the twin line of steel running for six thousand miles from Moscow to Vladiyostok, is free from the conveyance of troops, the Siberian towns, which have been starving for goods, are demanding large supplies and speedy deliveries. In the disturbed condition of the country, however, German firms have shown no eager ness to risk the lives of their travellers in a reigon where the value of life is Increasingly regarded, nor to forward goods for which there is very promle- matic prospect of payment. According ly, Mohomet has had to come to the mountain, and this year. writes Foster Freaser in the London Standard, Mi jni Novgorod is basking in it's old glory.
 The fair has provided opportunity for representing twenty million Mussul- mans in the Russian Empire-Moslems from south Russia, men who have talk en to the garb and customs of the West, and who, with their hair cropped a la Francaise and imperials, dark gray lounge jackets and patent leather boots, might easily be mistaken for Parisians; Maslems from Mongolia and Bokhara, men slim and sallow and sedated, with shayan heads and benna dyed boards; men in long flowing and embroidered sheep-skin coats, boots of red and turbans of green, who, for sitting, find the floor more comfortable than chairs.
 The Tatars are the cleverest mer- chants who come to Mini Novgord Whether 1t be in the selling of "over- land' tea-belived by the Muscovite to have been brought by caravan from China, but which has been sent around by ship to Odessa and trained to Mi jni-or in making fuss with precious stones which he hints have been stolen , from the mines, and therefore are to be obtained as a bargain, but which are imitation, made in a Parisian fac tory, the Tatar scores.
 He stands by his she or stall, look : | ir f,,,, 5nr , over his ears and his hands hid in the sleeves of his skin coat which is badly tanned and most unappetizing in : odor He has wondrous stacks of skins, from silver fox down to rat. You can } walk the better part of a mile past shops crowded with skins, most re- quiring to be cured For a year Siberia
 is hunted for skins to supply the Nijni Novgorod mart. The tribes of the north stalk in the winter; colonies of politi- : cal exiles have sometimes little other z means of winning livelihood than by
 getting skins.
 Over hundreds of miles of trackless
 snow the skins are hauled till river
 is reached. Then by boat they are
 brought to some place where the Si-
 berian railway can be touched or are
 taken to some aff1uent of the Volga
 The Tatar merchant has his buyers 5 everywhere. In his slothmul but still
 methodical way he meets the skins at certain points and arrives at Mini
 Novgorod with perhaps a couple of ; thousand pounds worth of goods. ! The market is conducted on strickly
 Eactern principles. There is no fixed } price. Everything is worth what it
 will fetch. The Tatar asks twice as 9 thing is worth aware all the time
 that you know he is asking double what he will accept. You offer half
 what the thing is worth, aware that he knows that you intend to increase the offer. So, much time is wasted by him regretfully lowering his price and you
 grudgingly raising your offer, until at the end you come very near if not ac-
 tually to the price you both know to
 be about right.
 There are splashes of the pictures que about the people who attended the
 fair. They have come from all points
 of the compass, by the slow and dirty
 Russian trains, by the huge, commodi-
 ous, shallow droughted, naphtha dri- l ven Volga boats-quite as big as the f notorious floating towns. on American E streanms-and by caravan. Russians
 from the towns are dressed in the European style, on the German model;
 Russians from the country are in wide i. trousers and top boots, Tapping red
 shirts and thick belts they are beard. h ed, while the hair is cropped short and
 the back of the neck shaved; their wo- 5 men are plain, stout, flgureless, and
 have shawls tied about their heads. t There are the brown cloaked, sheep.
 skin halted Persians from below the 0 Caucasus mountains; there are almond
 eyed Mongols, shrivel faced and wisI ,. whiskered; there are tawny Buriats
 and gray robed men from Bokhara
 there are innumerable Tatars, some
 accompanied by their women folk; fat :, swaddled wearing collar box hats ol /, velvet decorated with pearls.
 The fair ground is a mud flat lyins
 across the Volga from Mini Novgorot e proper There are rows upon rows ot cheap brick sheds, one story high, vel. | low ochred, with pavement of sorts
 The roadway, once cobbled is a mass
 of disgusting mire. Peasant carters, ir
 charge of inconsequent teams hauling n miscellaneous merchandise, yell ant f bawl. A jolting drosky attempting tC f dash by splashes the uniform of z
 Russian officer with filth and as the