The gostinnol dvor and the customary market-places are, of course, insufficient to accommodate all the wares that come pouring in. There are buildings in the town that have been erected on speculation, merely with a view to their being occupied during the fair time. Even the churches and convents seek to take advantage of so favourable an opportunity, by erecting, on such waste ground as they may have at their disposal, booths, either of a temporary or of a permanent character. One man, a merchant of the name of Karpoff, has erected a bazaar, which is said to bring him in during the fail time a rent of 50,000 rubles. Many of the Inhabitants also vacate the greater part of their houses, and are handsomely remunerated by the merchants for the temporary accommodation.
Manufactm'ed goods of cotton, silk, and wool, and furs of every description, form the staple commodities. Some of the merchants assured nic they had brought cotton goods to the value of 400,000 or 500,000 rubles to the fair. The smallest dealers in this article boasted of having a capital with them worth 40,000 or 50,000 rubles, and though they were certainly not called on to make a full and true confession to a stranger,
yet their several accounts a^eed so well, that I am disposed to believe they spoke the truth. The plain kitaika (calico), was the principal article, and was bought in large quantities by the oriental dealers.
The furs brought to Kharkoft' were not of the finest descriptions, for which St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Nishney Novgorod are more favourable markets, nevertheless the fur-booths were to me among the most attractive and interesting objects at tlie fair. There were ten merchants who dealt in the finer descriptions, and numbers came with the skins of wolves, sheep, and hares, for the supply of the common people. These booths were all fitted up in the most tasteful manner ; the skins were hung about the walls with an evident view to effect, and a couple of wolves or polar bears were usually stationed as sentinels at the door, to do that dead which they little dreamt of doing when alive, namely, to invite the stranger to enter their dens.
The greatest of all the fur-dealers at the fair was the merchant Shelikoff, who with a few other Moscovites, forms the great American Fur Company. Into the warehouses of this man the wild beasts enter fairly in herds. Nearly a fourth of all the animals killed by the Siberian and Sitka hunters is brought to his various depots at Novgorod, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, Odessa, and Kharkoff. It is fortunate for him that the ghosts of the bears and wild cats are less tenacious about the posthumous disposal of their hides than some of the heroes of tradition are supposed to have been. Shelikoff assured me, he had brought 600,000 inibles' worth of skins to the Kharkoff fair. In one small box alone, he showed me a few black fox skins, which he estimated at 30,000 rubles ; the least valuable of these skins were worth 2000, and for some he asked as much as 5000 rubles. Furs in Russia are examined and valued with the same minute care as diamonds are with us ; and a skin which unites all the sought for qualities, rises sometimes to a most enormous price. Every now and then you hear of a bear or a fox that has been shot, whose skin is declared to be above all value. The lightness of the hide, the colour, and gloss of the fur, the age of the animal, the season in which it has been killed, the length of the hair, the condition of the under wool, these, and various other points, are all most carefully investigated. Some of the beasts killed in the Siberian forests must be shot only with blunt pieces of wood, others must be caught in traps, and others again are comparatively valueless if struck iu any but a particular part of the body.
At no time was the coinage of Russia in a very satisfactory condition. Before the sovereigns of the country took to coining, different deseriptions of foreign money obtained a currency, and some have maintained their ground ever since. Among these are the Spanish dollar, the Dutch ducat, and a few others. Of some of the conquered provinces, again, the current coins have spread themselves over the whole empire. In this way the German coins came in through Livonia and Courland, the Swedish through Finland, and the Polish, Arabian, and Turkish, through Kasan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea.