Everyday business activity of Orenburg post-reform merchants engaged in trade at fairs

Abstract

The paper examines specifics of the business activity of Orenburg merchants during the post-reform era in the area of trade at fairs. The paper analyzes the conditions of this branch of commerce, including how comfortable the premises used for trade were, what features the nature and climate of Orenburg Region had, how the goods reached the consumer and what the internal atmosphere of major All-Russian fairs was. The study reveals the attitude of provincial entrepreneurs of the Great Reform period towards seasonal itinerant trade within their region. The narrowness of the domestic market, the difficulty of transporting goods by horse-drawn transport, the periodic cycle of operation of fairs, which didnt allow merchants to receive profits consistently, and the lack of comfortable retail outlets were the reasons why Orenburg merchants eventually abandoned intraregional seasonal trade. Since the 1880s, active construction of railways began throughout the empire, which made the Nizhny Novgorod Fair one of the centers of the empires commercial life, more available to the provincial merchants, and Orenburg entrepreneurs continued to visit it in the first decade and a half of the 20th century. However, one of the main reasons why merchants were interested in traveling to the Nizhny Novgorod Fair was the fact that all sorts of entertainment and pleasures were available at the fair, which were more difficult to enjoy at home due to family and marital obligations. The source base of the study consists of documents from the archives of Orenburg and Chelyabinsk Regions that reflect the problems of organizing fairs during the post-reform period.