The committee of the fair’s Gostiny Dvor decided to open the fair on July 15. On that day, the bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas held a service at the Old Fair Cathedral, and then the procession with icons and banners headed to the flag towers. There, in the presence of the chief of the governorate, the head of the fair and other distinguished persons of the city, a prayer service was held at the Flachnaya (Flag) Chapel, and the flags were sprinkled with holy water and hoisted. At the same moment, the flags on the flagpoles of all ships standing at the wharves were raised. This signified the official start of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair. The procession around the Nizhny Novgorod Fair took place every year on July 25, the day of St. Macarius the Miracle Worker — the patron saint of the fair.
In his book “A Brief History and Description of
Nizhny Novgorod”, the historian Nikolay Ivanovich Khramtsovsky wrote,
