In 1817, Agustín José Pedro del Carmen Domingo de Candelaria de Betancourt y Molina (known in Russian as Avgustin Betankur) surveyed the site of one of his most important engineering projects, the future Nizhnii Novgorod Trade Fair. In this episode, we move from Betankur's impressive architectural designs to daily life at the fair, tracing the ribaldry, revelry, and rampuctiousness that made this fair one of the marvels of the Russian Empire.

Source: A. Lincoln Fitzpatrick, The Great Russian Fair: Nizhnii Novgorod, 1840-90 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990).