Nijni-Novgorod ('Lower Novgorod'), a famous commercial city of Russia, and capital of a government, is situated at the confluence of the Oka with the Volga, 274 miles E. of Moscow by rail. There is an upper city, containing the Kremlin and many of the fifty churches, a lower city, and a suburb. The great fair brings buyers and sellers from all climes between Germany and China. For the convenience of those frequenting the fairs, there is an enormous market-hall, and sixty blocks of buildings for booths, containing more than 2500 apartments separated by fireproof walls. There are three annual fairs, two of them of minor account. The third, beginning at the 15th of July and continuing into September, is still the greatest in the world. But like the fair of Leipzig, it is evident that the great Russian fair is declining in importance. During the fair, the normal population (70,680 in 1895) is increased fivefold or even sevenfold; and the value of the goods sold at the great fair of 1889 was stated at
£18,854,277. At these fairs all foreign goods were supplied in smaller quantities, those of Russian production showing an increase. Nijni-Novgorod, founded in 1221, was devastated on several occasions by the Tartars; its prosperity dates from the year 1817, when the great fair was removed to Nijni-Novgorod from Makarief after a great fire.—The government, which has an area of 19,797 sq. m. and a pop. (1885) of 1,513,318, produces timber, iron and iron goods, salt, copper, gypsum, wool, and leather.