Photograph: Down feather tradesman at the fair.

European Jews

Poltava province, Lubensky district

1890s

Collodion print

7 x 11,5; 8 x 11,5

РЭМ 135-52

Fairs played an important role in the maintenance and development of the economy of pre-revolutionary Russia, in particular within the Pale. At major fairs held in cities (Poltava, Romny, Lubny, Berdichev etc.) and in larger shtetls, there was wholesale trade in agricultural products, cattle, and non-food goods. Products of small factories (brickyards, sawmills, tanneries etc., many of which were owned by Jews) were brought to a fair; it was also the place for signing contracts between merchants and manufacturers for large shipments of goods. Abundantly presented at the fairs were articles by artisan craftsmen: coopers, wheelers, potters, weavers, and many others. It was Jews who most often procured agricultural products and artisan goods in hamlets and villages and brought them to fairs. “If not for the Jew, the peasant would not have a buyer or a marketplace to sell the surplus of his tiny farmstead, he would have no source to get money from. Barring the Jews from trudging from farmstead to farmstead, from village to village, from marketplace to marketplace would mean stopping at once the industry of a whole region, which is only supported by them” (I. K. Babst, From Moscow to Leipzig. 1859).