Closure of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair in 1929 — the end of operations of the all-Union trading market on the left bank of the Oka near its confluence with the Volga, in Kanavino, where the trade was moved after the fire of 1816 destroyed the Makaryev Fair [9]; the stone fairground ensemble at the new site was ceremonially opened on 15 July 1822 [3][5]. The last year the fair was held was 1929 [1]. Its fate was formally sealed by a government decree of 6 February 1930: the fair was ordered abolished, and the USSR People's Commissariat of Trade was to liquidate the fair committee within a month [2][3]. The closure became one of the last acts in the winding-down of the New Economic Policy — the fair was liquidated as a socially hostile phenomenon [1][3].

The fair under the New Economic Policy

The Soviet fair was revived by a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of 4 March 1922; the trade opened on 1 August. It was managed first by a commission for restoring the fair and a government commissioner, then by the Nizhny Novgorod Fair Committee (1922–1929) [2]. The revival was led by Sergei Vasilyevich Malyshev, a Bolshevik with trading experience sent to the city on Lenin's orders, who served as chairman of the fair committee and was known as the "red merchant": under his leadership a significant part of the fair — the Main Fair House and twenty buildings — was restored in forty days [1][2].

Turnover grew almost tenfold — from 31 million rubles in 1922 to 300 million rubles in 1928; in 1928 the fair committee set itself the task of "putting the fair on the rails of trade by sample" [1][2]. The number of registered firms rose from 591 in 1922 to 2,177 in 1924 and more than 2,500 in 1928; Persia, China, Afghanistan, Turkey, Mongolia and Iraq traded there, and the industrial-cooperation exhibition, held from 1 August to 17 September, was visited by more than 350,000 people [1][2].

The last trading season of 1929

The 1929 fair opened in the usual manner: on 2 August the chairman of the USSR Central Executive Committee, Mikhail Kalinin, sent a congratulatory telegram expressing hope that the fair, as in previous years, would achieve success in developing trade with the East and in advancing artisanal and local industry [2]. In 1929, however, only 171 trading firms operated there, including 34 state-owned, 19 cooperative, 18 foreign firms and 6 joint-stock companies [1][2].

The Soviet fair never reached its pre-revolutionary scale: it did not occupy all the trading premises and was concentrated in a few rows near the Main House, and the destruction of the fair buildings had already begun in the 1920s [1][2].

The decree of 6 February 1930

On 6 February 1930 a government decree was adopted on the liquidation of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. Its rationale cited growing collectivization, the construction of collective and state farms, the five-year plan for the development of state and local industry, and the absorption of artisans into industrial cooperatives, which were expected to bring about "the complete elimination of unplanned trade-intermediary links in the turnover of goods" [2][3].

The fair's own official chronicle dates the order for its liquidation as a socially hostile phenomenon to 16 March 1930 [4].

What became of the fairground

In the 1920s–30s the vacated buildings were mostly converted into housing, and a slum district grew up on the former trading grounds [1][5]. Almost all of the fair's religious buildings, except the Transfiguration Old Fair Cathedral and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, were destroyed [1][5]; of the architectural ensemble only a few buildings survived — these two cathedrals and the Main Fair House [3]. The Transfiguration Cathedral itself was turned into a warehouse, and the administrative building into apartments; the church was returned to the Nizhny Novgorod diocese only in 1991 [7].

In the 1940s–50s the fairground became a kind of "quarry" for the city's newly built apartment blocks: multi-storey buildings rose on the site of the merchants' arcade and the Bétancourt Canal, and the architectural ensemble completely lost its spatial composition [1]. The Main House was occupied in these years by administrative institutions [1]; as early as the 1930s it housed the city council [6], at one point an aero club, during the war years the headquarters of the Gorky Defence Committee, and after the reconstruction of the 1970s the "Detsky Mir" (Children's World) store opened there [1][5].

Aftermath

In the 1930s the city lost not only its fame as the country's largest trading centre but also its historic name [1]: on 7 October 1932, the year of the all-Union celebration of the 40th anniversary of Maxim Gorky's literary career, Nizhny Novgorod became Gorky [8].

The idea of the fair was revived six decades later: in the spring of 1990 an advertising campaign called "Prologue" was held, half a year later a fair directorate headed by V. V. Bessarab appeared, and on 5 November 1991 the All-Russian Joint-Stock Company was founded, under whose name the Nizhegorodskaya Yarmarka returned to operation [1][3]. At the same time, for the first time since the fair's closure in 1929, the restored Coat of Arms Hall in the Main House was opened to visitors — a project by architects Ye. I. Genkina, V. N. Ignatyev and V. M. Puzanov [1].

Sources

  1. Nizhny Novgorod City Administration — The Fate of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair in the 20th Century (based on S. Shumilkin's book "The Nizhny Novgorod Fair") (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — V. I. Lenin Central City Library — Resumption of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, 1922–1929 (web archive) (archive)
  3. yarmarka.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Fair — History of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair (archive)
  4. yarmarka.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Fair — History: chronicle of the fair by period (archive)
  5. V Gorode N — How the Famous Nizhny Novgorod Fair Looked and Changed: Archival Photos (archive)
  6. nn.aif.ru — AiF — Nizhny Novgorod — Pocket of Russia: 10 Interesting Facts About the Nizhny Novgorod Fair (archive)
  7. nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Metropolitanate — Transfiguration Old Fair Cathedral (archive)
  8. Rossiyskaya Gazeta — How Nizhny Novgorod Became Gorky, and Then Got Its Name Back (archive)
  9. book-hall.ru — Kanavino Central Library System — The Nizhny Novgorod Fair: A Historical Note (archive)