Irbit Fair in the system of commercial operations of the Kazan merchants in the second half of the 19th century
Natalia A. Koreeva, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Senior Researcher of the Laboratory of Multifactorial Humanitarian Analysis and Cognitive Philology
Federal research center “Kazan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences”, Kazan, Russia, KoreevaNata@mail.ru, https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0049-4303
Abstract
The article analyzes the assortment of goods of Kazan merchants at the Irbit fair, provides information on the volume of their trade in the second half of the 19th century — the number of imported and sold products in value terms, the places of origin of the goods are determined. Merchants brought to the fair goods purchased in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Ivanovo, Kyakhta, Menzelinsk, Kazan. Apart from commercial activities, they were involved in the management system of the fair, performing the functions of village elders. The article compares the results of the fair census of 1880 and the statements compiled by the village elders on behalf of the Irbit Fair Committee. The author concludes that the Irbit Fair, closely connected with the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, was one of the key centers for business activities and contacts of merchants, among whom there were many immigrants from the Kazan province. For them, the fair was the most important place to sell tea, sugar, leather, millinery and footwear, ichig shoes, manufactured and grocery goods, crystal. Irbit provided merchants with retail premises of different sizes, had a branch of a Commercial bank, accommodations and lodgings, as well as storage facilities. The study is based on materials from the collections of the State Archives of the Sverdlovsk Region, introduced into scientific circulation for the first time.
Koreeva N. A. Irbit Fair in the system of commercial operations of the Kazan merchants in the second half of the 19th century. Vestnik of Orenburg State Pedagogical University. Electronic Scientific Journal, 2025, no. 1 (53), pp. 157—175. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32516/2303-9922.2025.53.10.
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