In spring, when the navigation is just opened, a fair of a very peculiar kind is held in the place behind the exchange, and hither, to the considerable profit of many a seaman and trader, throng all classes of society in St. Petersburg, to enjoy a long-looked for pleasure. Here are displayed such foreign productions as are held too insignificant to become regular articles of commerce, and which fall to the lot of the ship's captain and crew. Paroquets and other rare birds, monkeys, baboons, and such like animals, sometimes kept as pets in great houses, splendidly coloured plants from the tropical cUmates, scream, chatter, and flare together. Here are to be found rare shells for the curious in conchology, strange looking utensils and garments from savage countries, and sometimes a ship -master may be seen leading about a negro-boy, to dispose of, if not exactly as a slave, at least to make a profit of his services, in the house of some person of consequence. After the dead, silent, colourless winter, there is an extraordinary charm in this noisy, gaudy tumult, the first gift of foreign shores to the far northern city ; it is like a hansel to a trader commencing business, and the wares go off merrily, particularly the screaming and grimacing portion of them.
We have before remarked that in Russia all foreign produce is for the most part vended by foreigners ; and that the trade in the arts and manufactui'cs of Western Europe is completely separate from the properly
Russian and oriental traffic. St. Petersburg is, from its position and its privileges, almost the only port which suppUes Russia, with jewellery, watches, wines, cloths, laces, silk wares, cotton, &c. Hence there are in St. Petersburg astounding quantities of such articles, and great magazines are formed, which are either really the parent stocks of like establishments in the provincial cities, or are at least the cause of their existence ; the dealers, meanwhile, form regular colonies of foreign artisans, foreign artists or traffickers in the productions of foreign art throughout the whole empire ; that is to say, through half Europe, and half Asia. From this peculiarity of position, these foreign traders must be regarded not merely as traders, but as in a high degree the servants of civilization, and as such, they enter a society to which they could have no pretension elsewhere ; and possessing thus a weight and influence they could not otherwise lay claim to, they deserve in a particular manner the notice of the traveller. According to the views of the ordinary Russian the whole European world is divided into two parts, into " Nashe Storona" (our side) and " Vashe Storona" (your side), under which latter denomination he includes all Europe that is not Russian.
This other half of Europe he also calls " the foreign land," and has a gene • ral idea that all within it is of a superior kind, the people particularly excellent, nature extraordinarily beautiful, the productions of art and industry irreproachable. Thence come those " Inostranzi," or foreigners, those wise people, who understand every thing better than he does, and from whom he ieams so much.
These Inostranzi, whose first appearance by no means dates from Peter I., but who had settlements in different cities of the empire centuries before his time, were always a privileged race, if not by imperial ordonnance, as they have been since John Basilovitch, yet by their own superiority. Their freedom dates mostly from Peter the Great and Catherine, and although some attempts have been made since to limit it, yet it may be asserted on the whole, that they enjoy aU the privileges of the subject, without sharing his burdens. Without paying taxes, without furnisliing recruits, not subject to any guild or corporation, they may work and trade freely from city to city, throughout the whole empire. In our German cities the poor foreigner finds himself horribly restrained in comparison with the native ; we may almost say persecuted and oppressed ; whilst in Russia it is the foreigner whose privileges are to be envied. Not only private persons, but the authorities, when it is said of any one " on Inostranez" (he is a foreigner), think themselves bound to greater civility of demeanour.