Markets of Russia in the 19th Century
"The Russians have the custom, which is very convenient for purchasers, of exhibiting on one and the same spot almost every thing that is to be sold in a town,…
From: 1842 C.E. To: 1842 C.E.
Location: Russia
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Russia and the Russians, in 1842, by J.G. Kohl.
The Russians have the custom, which is very convenient for purchasers, of exhibiting on one and the same spot almost every thing that is to be sold in a town, so that you find the most different articles that you can want collected in one and the same building. A stranger, therefore, has no occasion to inquire, Where is this or that to be bought? He need only go to the markets of the city, where he finds at once every thing that he can ask for. The only exceptions to this rule are provisions, for which there are special markets, wines, and some other articles, which every housekeeper likes to have as near at hand as possible.
The great markets, where stocks are kept of all the most important commodities that the consumption of a town requires, are called by the Russians Gostinnoje Dworui (inns). These are generally spacious and very tastefully constructed buildings of two floors, with a colonnade running round them. The courts which they enclose, as well as the upper floor, serve in general for magazines and for wholesale dealings. The ground floor, on the other hand, is entirely occupied by retail shops. The shopkeepers, who live at their own homes, fasten and lock up these places of business at night, and leave them to the care of watchmen and dogs.
In every town in Russia of any importance there is such a Gostinnoi Dwor, the size of which furnishes the statistical inquirer at once with an excellent standard for judging of the extent of the traffic of a town. Even in the German towns of the Baltic provinces, in Mittau, Dorpat, and others, the Russians have erected Gostinnoje Dworui of this kind; but they are not met with in commercial sea-ports, such as Riga, Libau, Odessa, &c. In those places which have no markets, where all sorts of commodities are collected, there is nevertheless a particular district which is the especial seat of trade, and which is occupied by uninterrupted lines of shops, though in other parts there is nothing whatever for sale; this is the case, for instance, in Odessa.
In no country does like stick closer to like than in Russia. Not only are all the tradesmen to be found together here in one market, but all those who deal in the same commodity unite to form a smaller mass. Thus all the stationers are in a row, all the silk-mercers are together, and all the leather-sellers in one group. The spirit of division and subdivision is so deeply implanted in the character of the Russian tradesmen, that, wherever they come forward as sellers, they naturally split into large classes of this kind.
Hence it is that those commodities which are excluded from the Gostinnoi Dwor are generally found by themselves in a certain part of the town; so that there are in reality as many markets as there are commodities, which, in the larger cities, for instance, Moscow, Petersburg, Odessa, can be accurately pointed out, and where the demand for each single article is sufficient to require a certain number of shops. Such rows of shops for the goods excluded from the Gostinnoi Dwor, the Russians call merely Rädi, with the addition of the commodity sold there. Thus they talk of iron-shops, charcoal-shops, wood-shops, sledge-shops, coach -shops, furniture-shops; for the articles here mentioned, requiring a great deal of room, cannot be admitted into the markets.
The same principle extends to the market-places, which the Russians call Ruinoks. These two, according to the commodities offered for sale, are strictly separated, but of course only in the great cities, into divisions, in which no other goods but those appropriated to them are to be found. Thus there is a distinct market for eggs, another for fowls, another for hay, one for butcher's meat, one for fish, one for game and all more distinctly parted than we find them in our great cities.
The Gostinnoi Dwor is usually situated in the centre of the city, and all the other markets and shops are further and further removed from that point towards the outskirts, the coarser the commodity is; thus provisions are at a greater distance than manufactured goods, wood than iron, coaches and sledges than household furniture; and hay, straw, cattle, horses, and the like, quite out of the city. Be it observed, however, that we are here speaking only of national Russian dealers and productions, of that which grew and was reared in the vicinity of the towns for their consumption, or was furnished by the industry of the empire itself, or the neighbouring countries of Asia; in short, by the traffic of Russia with Tatary, Bucharia, and China. For, as to the articles produced to the west of the Cossack line, or, if within the empire, yet made by foreign, that is to say, West-European artisans, these are wholly excluded from the Russian markets and market-houses, and for them are expressly built, in the most fashionable and elegant street, magazines, in which English, French, and Germans display and dispose of their ware, all twice as good and thrice as dear as those sold by the Russians.
In the genuine Russian towns of the interior, the Gostinnoi Dwor, with its subordinate shops, always surpasses the magazines in magnitude and importance in the same proportion as that which calls itself polished society is surpassed by that which is termed barbarous, Asiatico-Russian, and on which the former only floats like a thin cream. But in Petersburg, where the foreign and European elements equal the Russian, they about balance one another in the value of the goods offered for sale, though, in regard to the mass of raw productions stored up there, the Gostinnoi Dwor has, of course, the advantage.
J. G. Kohl, Russia and the Russians, in 1842, vol. 1 (London: H. Colburn, 1842), 120-123.
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