The History of the City of Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod was founded on the confluence of the two great Russian rivers - the Volga and the Oka - by Prince Yuri (George) Vsevolodovich in 1221 as a strong standpoint of defending the Russian frontiers from Mordvinians, Cheremisians and Tatars. The City got its name "Nizhny" may be because of its location on the "Lower" lands comparing with Novgorod the

Great or with the so called "Old Little Town" that was situated four versts up the Oka-river, the record of which could be found in literature till the beginning of the 17th century.

The first wood-ground fortress had an extremely favorable, in the military strategic respect, position - a mountain rising above the confluence of the Volga and the Oka, which was perfectly protected by a deep moat from one side, and the steep crumble cliffs of the river bank from the other. During the first years there were two white-stone cathedrals built in the Kremlin - it testified to the fact that the town claimed to a particular role in the system of the lands of Vladimir-Susdal Russia, but the Mongol-Tatar invasion destroyed these intentions.

The information about Nizhny Novgorod of the 13th century is extremely scant. But it is known that after the devastation it revived very quickly. For a short period of time there was established a "veche republic", such as in Novgorod the Great.

The location of the town determined its future. After the Mongol-Tatar yoke Nizhny Novgorod was constantly mentioned in Russian chronicles; it became a strong political and economical centre of North-Eastern Russia remaining at the same time a spiritual pillar of the Orthodoxy in the Volga region. At that time it frequently became a conflict object in the power division struggle between the gaining force Moscow and Tver. There were times when Nizhny was pronounced the capital of the Grand Duchy, which existed more than half a century (1341-1392) and was not inferior to Moscow and Tver in striving for domineering Russia. Seventeen times in its history the town was attacked by enemies, not once it was razed to the ground, but it revived again and again.

Since the end of the 15th century Nizhny was an unfailing stronghold of Moscow in fighting for the Great River Way. At this time a new stone-walled Kremlin was erected in the town, which was later recognized as an outstanding construction of the Russian fortification art. In summer of 1509 a foreign architect Peter Fryazin arrived at the place, and on the 1st of September he laid the corner stone of the Kremlin wall and the Dmitrovskaya tower.

The analysis of the architecture and the construction peculiarities of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin allowed its restorer S. Agafonov to come to the conclusion that the fortress had been made by Russian workmen. The total perimeter of the Kremlin walls contains 13 towers (Dmitrievskaya, Porokhovaya, Georgievskaya, Borisoglebskaya, Zachatievskaya (the latter two are partly destroyed), Belaya, Chasovaya, Ivanovskaya, Severnaya, Tainitskaya, Koromyslova, Nikolskaya, Kladovaya), to add to it there was a detached strelnitsa which was connected with the Dmitrievsky gate by means of a stone arch-bridge, built across the 30-meter deep ditch, which is destroyed nowadays.
The scheme of the Kremlin

In 1612 from the walls of this Kremlin the volunteer corps leading by Kozma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky took the field to fight the Polish-Lithuanian invaders. History still keeps the patriotic appeal of Kozma Minin to his fellow countrymen: "Oh, Brothers and Friends, all Folk of Nizhny! What can we do, when Moscow state is in great devastation? Let us call all brave men of Nizhny and the reliable noblemen of Smolensk City, who are not far from our town now, in the Arzamas region." The citizens of Nizhny supported the appeal with a single heart. The self-sacrifice and the feat of arms of the Nizhny Novgorod levies liberated Russia from the foreign interventionists.

A slab in the obelisk with a bas-relief portray of Minin (I.P.Martos)

A slab in the obelisk with a bas-relief portray of Pozharsky (I.P.Martos)

After Kazan and Astrakhan were conquered (in 1552) by Ivan the Terrible, Nizhny Novgorod became the center of the most significant trade route berween the Russian State and the West. In the XVII century Nizhny Novgorod was the center of boats caravans mass forming and hiring of hundreds of workers. Salt, fish and oriental goods from boats arriving from Astrakhan were transfered to smaller boats going up to the Upper Volga and Oka. At that time Nizhny Novgorod became the center of shipbuilding. Crafts were very developed in the city: in 1662 citizens mastered 119 craft professions.

On the 28th of May, 1722 during the Persian wars Peter the Great arrived to Nizhny Novgorod. On the 30th of May he celebrated here his fiftieth anniversary.

In the XVIII century Nizhny Novgorod became an administrative center. From 1714 the town became the principal town of the province, from 1779 till 1796 a center of included provinces Viatskaya, Kostromskay, Penzenskaya and Alatirskaya. The transformation of Nizhny Novgorod into the capital of the big Russian region favored to development of education, industry, trade, medicine, culture, sciences and townplanning. At that time a private hospital and pharmacy were opened, public private theaters began to work (for example, the Drama Theater, the oldest in Nizhny Novgorod, was founded in 1798 by Prince Shekhovskoy). In 1786 the four-class secular principal people s school was opened in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1792 the provincial printing-house was set up.

On the boundary of XVIII and XIX centuries Nizhny Novgorod developed its cultural and scientific life. Also, the genius inventor I.P. Kulibin, lived and died there, the matematician N.I. Lobatchevsky, the scientist Damaskin, the eminent teacher I.I. Kugelev, the historian N. Ilyinsky, the writer-traveller V. Baranchtchikov and many others.

At the beginning of the XIXth century the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod took an active part in the Patriotic War. The local volunteer corps took part in the march of Russian troops till the absolute victory over Napoleon and were disbanded towards 1815.

Many of the Decemberists were connected with Nizhny Novgorod: M.P. Bestuzhev-Rumin, Alexandre and Nikolas Kryukov, S.P. Trubetskoy, Annenkov, N.V. Sheremetiev, V.I. Belavin, Ph.P. Shakhovskoy, A.N. Muravyov. The first who expressed the utopian ideas of the Decemberist movement was also a citizen of Nizhny Novgorod - musicologist and musician Ulybyshev.

In 1816 the recently built fair in Makariev was burnt down. After it the All-Russia trade fair was transferred to the Oka and Volga's Strelitsa on the outskirts of Nizhny Novgorod, it completely changed the look and the lifestyle of the city. Under the leadership of A.A. Betankur and after his projects a large complex of fair was erected.

Front of he Fair building ( A.A. Betankur)

That largely contributed to the trade significance of the city and made it the third largest city of Russia.

It existed more than a century and played a great role not only in the history of Russian trade and the establishment of the Russian market, but it was one of the largest fairs in the world.

In the 30-40 years of the XIXth century most significant architecture changes of the city took place.

The main pavilion of the Fair building (a sight from within)

Different public buildings and private trade houses of that time remain the principal architectural background of the historical reconstruction of the city.

On the 2nd and 3d of September, 1833 A.S.Pushkin visited Nizhny Novgorod on his way to the Orenburg region for his research work on the peasant war under the command of E.Pugachov. He vizited the Kremlin twice, crossed the trading Rozhdestvenskaya street from beginning to end, strolled on the territory of the famous Makariev fair. The impressions from the observed sights the poet expressed in one of the chapters of "Eugine Onegin".

In the middle of the 19th century the cultural centers of the city traditionally were the mansions of such outstanding citizens as: V.I.Dal, A.D.Ulybyshev, A.S.Gatsisky. V.G.Korolenko, F.I.Shalyapin and other people, who were not Nizhny born citizens, are also known in Nizhny due to their work. The city was always famous for its musical preferences, and the established in the 70 years of the XIXth century musical college was one of the first in the Russian province. And the first provincial art exhibition was held in Nizhny Novgorod in 1886. Moreover the founding fathers of the Russian art and publicistic photography A.O.Karelin and M.P.Dmitriev lived and worked in Nizhny Novgorod.

The preparation and organization of the All-Russia Fair of art and industry in Nizhny in 1896 gave an important impetus to a further development of the Nizhny Novgorod culture: the building of the City theatre was erected in Bolshaya Pokrovkaya street.

The Nizhny Novgorod Academic Drama Theatre (V.A.Shreter)