e Russians do not control the navigable waters that
connect them with the Atlantic.

Much of the internal trade is carried on by means of annual fairs. The
most important of these are held at _Nijni_, (lower) _Novgorod_,
_Kharkof_, _Kief_, and other points. At the first-named fair goods to
the amount of $80,000,000 have changed hands during a single season, and
the annual fair is the recognized common ground on which the oriental
traders meet the buyers of European and American firms.

Unlike the schemes of colonization of other European states, the various
possessions of the Czar are practically in a single area, the
dependencies being contiguous. The lines between them, with few
exceptions, are political rather than natural boundaries.

_St. Petersburg_, the capital, is the centre of finance and trade.
_Riga_ is the port from which most of the lumber is exported; it
receives the coal purchased from Great Britain for the factories of the
Baltic coast. The harbor of Riga is not greatly obstructed by ice.
_Archangel_ has an export trade of lumber and flax during the few months
when the White Sea is free from ice. _Odessa_ and _Rostof_ are the
grain-markets of the empire. _Astrakhan_ is the centre of trade for the
Iran countries, and _Baku_ is the petroleum-market. _Moscow_ is the
chief focal point of the railways; and in consequence has become a great
centre of manufacture and trade. _Warsaw_, next to Moscow, is the most
important city.

=Siberia.=--This great territory resembles Russia in surface and climatic
features. Like the former "west" of the United States, Siberia is the
open "east" into which much of the surplus population of Russia,
Germany, and the Scandinavian countries is moving, attracted by fine
farming lands. The European emigrant becomes a producer when settled in
Siberia, and, at the same time, a consumer of Russian manufactures. In
five years more than one million people thus became occupants of the new
country in Siberia. Russian trade is encouraged by a heavy tariff on
foreign goods brought into Siberia.

_Tobolsk_, _Tomsk_, and _Semipalatinsk_ are collecting stations for
Siberian products, and each is built on navigable waters. _Irkutsk_
receives the caravan trade that goes from Peking through _Urga_ and
_Kiakhta_, the frontier post of Chinese trade. _Vladivostok_ is the
great Pacific outlet and the terminus of the Transsiberian Railway. It
is ice-bound in winter. _Harbin_, in Manchuria, China,