Irbit Fair

[1][2] It was held annually in winter in the town of Irbit, trading with tea and fur brought along the Siberian trakt from Asia.

[3] As Thomas Wallace Knox (1835–96) writes in his book Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tatar Life (1870): The fair dominated the town and shaped its architecture and layout.

Long, narrow dormitories are a feature of the old town with enormous wharf areas being found at the juncture of the Nitsa and Irbit rivers.

The fair was originally founded in 1643.

[4] With the interruptions to the fair following the October Revolution and Russian Civil War and the effects of the Trans-Siberian Railway on trade, the fair ceased in 1929 and the town lost its importance as an agricultural and trade center.