Akademika Blokhinoy Street (full official name — Akademika I. N. Blokhinoy Street; before the Revolution Mistrovskaya, and in Soviet times Zagorsky Street) is a street in the Nizhegorodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod. It begins at Osharskaya Street next to Osharskaya Square, crosses Varvarskaya Street, and ends at Kovalikhinskaya Street. It is 432 meters long and has eleven properties [15]. The street received its current name on May 28, 1999, by resolution of the City Duma, in honor of Irina Nikolaevna Blokhina (1921–1999), a microbiologist, academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, and Honorary Citizen of Nizhny Novgorod [1]. The surname in the street's name is feminine, and this is not a slip of the pen: the street bears the name of a woman scientist who lived on it, at No. 9 [8][9].

Where it runs

The street runs perpendicular to three radial streets of the Historic Center and links them with one another. Varvarskaya divides it in two: the lower stretch from Osharskaya is occupied by buildings No. 2–7A, the upper stretch, up to Kovalikhinskaya, by buildings No. 9–14. In all, the street has eleven properties, four intersections, and a single postal code for all of them — 603006 [15].

This same stretch was described in the mid-19th century by Nikolay Khramtsovsky: "Osharskaya Square is connected with Varvarskaya Street by Mistrovskaya and Staraya Petropavlovskaya Streets" [2]. The place was on the outskirts: Osharskaya Square itself was considered the edge of the city — a "pustoplesye" (barren expanse), in Khramtsovsky's words — and it took its name from the tavern "Oshara," which stood in the middle of it until 1855 [2].

Mistrovskaya: the general's street

The street was named after one of its residents. Ivan Ivanovich Mistrov was a major general from the days of Catherine the Great who settled in Nizhny Novgorod and died here in 1849 in his own house; the street came to be called Mistrovskaya after him [2]. Local-history accounts add that Mistrov's estate was the largest on the street, and reference works on the city's place names call him a participant in Suvorov's campaigns [12]. The Kosciuszko mentioned by Khramtsovsky was the leader of the Polish uprising of 1794, who was taken to St. Petersburg after its defeat [2].

In Nizhny Novgorod, streets were given personal names in honor of especially distinguished citizens who had contributed to the prosperity of the city. Mistrovskaya stood alongside Perepletchikovskaya, named after a merchant and philanthropist (now Pushkina Street), Gotmanovskaya, named after an engineer and city planner (now Kostina Street), and Kizevetterskaya, named after the first city architect (now Frunze Street). Of these four, only Mistrovskaya bore the name of a military man [12].

The street is also known to have had an earlier name: when the blocks were laid out in 1802, it was called Ivanovskaya. The name did not have time to take hold — by the middle of the 19th century Khramtsovsky knows the street only as Mistrovskaya [2].

Major General Ivan Ivanovich Mistrov lived on it for many years and died there in 1849, in his own house — a veteran of the era of Catherine II who took part in many campaigns and battles: he served under Prince Potemkin and under Suvorov's banners; fought the mountain tribesmen in the Caucasus and the confederates in Poland; and had the honor of conveying the renowned Kosciuszko to St. Petersburg

— Nikolay Khramtsovsky, "A Brief Sketch of the History and Description of Nizhny Novgorod," 1857 [2]

Zagorsky Street

In the Soviet years Mistrovskaya became Zagorsky Street and bore that name until 1999 [4].

Vladimir Mikhailovich Zagorsky (real surname Lubotsky, party pseudonym Denis) was born on January 15, 1883 (January 3, Old Style), in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1902 he was arrested here, at a May Day demonstration, and exiled to Yeniseysk Governorate, from which he escaped to Geneva in 1904. From July 1918 Zagorsky was secretary of the Moscow Committee of the party; he was killed on September 25, 1919, in the explosion of a bomb thrown into the committee's premises in Leontyevsky Lane [13].

In those same years the neighboring Varvarskaya Street also changed its name: after the revolution it was named in honor of Vera Figner, who served her exile in Nizhny Novgorod, and its historic name returned only many years later [6].

Academician Blokhina Street

Irina Nikolaevna Blokhina was born on April 21, 1921, in Nizhny Novgorod, into the family of a zemstvo doctor [10]. Both her father and her older brother — the future academician Nikolay Nikolaevich Blokhin, a surgeon and oncologist — were physicians [9]. In 1938 she finished school and entered the Gorky Medical Institute, and from 1941, as a fourth-year student, she worked as a nurse in the surgical department of the regional hospital; from March 1942 she was a physician at the Gorky, and later the Sverdlovsk, regional blood transfusion station [1].

Blokhina joined the Gorky Research Institute of Vaccines and Sera as a junior researcher on September 12, 1946, and by Order No. 173-l of the USSR Ministry of Health, dated January 22, 1955, she was appointed its director — a post she held for forty-four years, until her death [1][9]. She was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences in 1975 and a full academician in 1980. In 1976 she founded the Department of Molecular Biology in the Faculty of Biology at Gorky University and headed it until 1989, and in 1984 she received the USSR State Prize for anti-staphylococcal immune preparations and the scientific substantiation of immunotherapy for staphylococcal infections. She was elected a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR three times [1].

The City Duma conferred on her the title of Honorary Citizen of Nizhny Novgorod in 1996 [1]. Blokhina died on April 14, 1999, and is buried at the Bugrovskoye Cemetery [10]. A month and a half later, on May 28, the same Duma renamed Zagorsky Street as Academician Blokhina Street, and on August 24 of that year the institute she had headed was given her name — the Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology [1].

A memorial plaque and a bust of Blokhina were unveiled on April 21, 2021, the centenary of her birth, on the institute building and inside it — on Malaya Yamskaya Street, 71 [1].

The Blokhin House

The house where the family lived stands at number 9. In the register of cultural heritage sites it is listed as the house of T. A. Gromova, and the name of the monument itself records that in 1920—1990 it was home to the physician-academicians Nikolay Nikolayevich Blokhin and Irina Nikolayevna Blokhina; its protection category is regional [8]. The family moved to Nizhny Novgorod in 1916, five years before Irina Nikolayevna was born [11]. The institute's staff wrote about it briefly in their anniversary essay: "The street on which she lived bears her name" [9].

Chistyakova House

The oldest building on the street is house No. 12, built in 1841 to a design by Georg Ivanovich Kizevetter, the first municipal architect of Nizhny Novgorod, for the noblewoman Avdotya Aleksandrovna Chistyakova: a log house of one story on a stone basement, with a mezzanine floor in the courtyard half [3][4].

The architect took the owner's tastes into account. The five large rectangular windows of the main facade are marked with sandriks (decorative window pediments), carved garlands are placed beneath the sandriks, and beneath the windows are panels with a plant ornament of acanthus leaves; the frieze is adorned with floral rosettes. The carving is blind, imitating stucco; the original plank cladding of the main facade is fastened with wrought nails. No analogues of such decoration have survived in Nizhny Novgorod, and among the monuments of Wooden Architecture of Nizhny Novgorod the house stands apart as an example of late Classicism [3][4].

The estate changed owners more than once: after Chistyakova the house was bought by the merchant Dolganov, then it belonged to Cavalry Captain Balakirev, and then to the merchant D. D. Dushin, who built in the courtyard one-story stone L-shaped outbuildings with a drying house, today's house No. 12A. Together with the extensive garden and the main house, they made up a typical urban estate. The sources differ on the details: according to some, the owners were the Gorbatov merchant of the 3rd guild Fyodor Stepanovich Dolganov (1843), Cavalry Captain Dmitry Konstantinovich Balakirev (mid-1860s), and the outbuildings date from 1880; according to others, D. M. Balakirev from 1865 and D. D. Dushin from 1874 [3][4]. The last private owner was a townswoman (meshchanka) named Baranova, until 1918 [3].

A beautiful urban legend is connected with the house. The merchants Dolganov employed as a maid a thirteen-year-old girl, whom the merchant's wife Praskovya Aksyonovna Dolganova first took to a performance at the Nizhny Novgorod theater; that girl grew up to be Lyubov Pavlovna Nikulina-Kositskaya (1829—1868), a star of the Maly Theater and the first performer of the role of Katerina in Ostrovsky's "The Storm," who in many ways inspired the playwright in creating that role [3][4]. The legend is repeated in many local-history books, but the deed of sale for the house is dated September 1843, when Kositskaya was already acting in the Nizhny Novgorod theater and living at it; moreover, different houses in the city were registered to different merchants named Dolganov [3].

After nationalization, the house was divided into communal apartments, and the stone outbuildings in the courtyard were given a second floor and settled too. Kitchens and utility rooms were moved into living rooms, and the rooms were heated with stoves and kerosene burners. Later the stoves were partly dismantled — the house settled, the walls and partitions warped, and the foundation plinth cracked [3].

The house was placed under state protection by decision of the Gorky Regional Executive Committee of December 18, 1989, No. 471 [4]. In the list of protection zones approved by the city administration in 2021, the monument is still recorded under the street's former name — "12 Zagorsky Street" [8]. In August 2023, restoration of the vacated house began: scaffolding was erected, unsafe structures were dismantled, old paint was scraped from the facades, and work started on the carved decor. Volunteers carried old belongings out of the house and found Christmas ornaments, an abacus, paintings, a wooden sled, and pre-revolutionary and Soviet medicine bottles; the work of the street artist Sinii Karandash (Blue Pencil) on the door of the annex was preserved. The building is in regional ownership, and negotiations are under way with investors about adapting the monument to modern use [7].

The House of Industry and Nizhpoligraf

The corner of the street and Varvarskaya is occupied by the largest building in the block — the former House of Industry named after Mikhail and Lyubov Rukavishnikov. The idea of opening a house of industry for the poor in the city was voiced at a City Duma meeting as early as 1887; the Rukavishnikovs set up the first such institution right here, in the wooden premises of a former carpentry factory on Mistrovskaya, but it soon burned down [6].

The board submitted a petition to review the drawings of the "House of Industry planned for construction in N. Novgorod, at the corner of Mistrovskaya and Varvarskaya streets" on June 10, 1903; the project was approved on October 7, construction ran from April 1903, and the building was consecrated on December 3, 1906 [5].

The plaque on the facade and local-history literature name one author of the design, while the archive names another. The plaque attributes the building to Dombrovsky P. A., but in the archival file his signature appears only as acting provincial architect, and Dombrovsky's own drawings from the same folder relate to a different building of 1908. The design was made by civil engineer Anatoly Ivanovich Shmakov (1870–1906), who died half a year before the house was consecrated; the report of the board of trustees and newspapers of 1903 name him directly [5].

More than two hundred people lived in the house: they picked oakum, combed bast, wove matting, glued paper bags, and sewed covers, and received for this 6 to 15 kopecks a day, two meals a day, and a bed for the night [6]. It served its intended purpose until 1914; during the First World War a hospital was housed in it, and in the spring of 1922 the equipment of the city's printing houses was brought here — this is how Nizhpoligraf was born [6][18]. In 1964 two floors were added to the building, and in 1980 a new wing on Varvarskaya was built right up against it [6].

The printing house was closed in 2019 [18]. Today the buildings house the Nizhpoligraf educational, industrial, and creative cluster: a technology park with laboratories, residents' workshops, event venues, and art galleries [19].

The new building of the House of Industry, judging by the plan drawn up by the architect A. I. Shmakov, will be quite extensive. It will occupy 23 sazhens in length along Mistrovskaya and Varvarskaya Streets

— the newspaper Volgar, April 19, 1903; quoted from a study by V. V. Krasnov [5]

What stands on the street

Buildings of Akademika Blokhina Street
AddressWhat it isDateStatus
No. 9 (building A)House of T. A. Gromova; from 1920 to 1990 it was home to the physician-academicians Nikolay Nikolayevich Blokhin and Irina Nikolayevna Blokhina19th centurycultural heritage site of regional significance [8]
No. 12 (building A)House of the noblewoman A. A. Chistyakova, designed by city architect G. I. Kizevetter1841cultural heritage site of regional significance; in the 2021 list of protection zones the address is recorded as "Zagorskogo Street, 12" [4][8]
No. 12AStone outbuildings of the Chistyakova estate with a drying house, built by the merchant D. D. Dushin; a second floor was added in the Soviet years1880service yard of the estate complex [3][4]
Varvarskaya Street, 32 — corner of Akademika Blokhina StreetHouse of Industry named after M. and L. Rukavishnikov, since 1922 the Nizhpoligraf printing house1903—1906cultural heritage site of regional significance [5][8]
No. 5Three-story residential building1934ordinary development [16]
No. 7Nine-story residential building2007ordinary development [17]

The Street Today

Historic buildings stand side by side with ordinary residential ones here: the three-story building at No. 5 was built in 1934, the nine-story building at No. 7 in 2007, and between them the lower stretch of the street holds all of its residential section [16][17].

In the summer of 2025, the entire street was renovated. The final stage was the section from Osharskaya to Varvarskaya: the old surface was milled off, new asphalt was laid over an area of more than three thousand square meters, 19 manhole covers were replaced, curbstones were installed, and road markings were painted, while the lawns were reseeded by hydroseeding [14].

Links

Sources

  1. nniiem.ru — Federal Budgetary Scientific Institution "Nizhny Novgorod Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Academician I. N. Blokhina" — official essay for its 100th anniversary (archive)
  2. kostromka.ru — N. I. Khramtsovsky, "A Brief Sketch of the History and Description of Nizhny Novgorod" (1857) — chapter on the city's streets — Streets of Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  3. opentextnn.ru — "Open Text" — a local-history publication of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Russian Society of Historians and Archivists — O. I. Naumova. And This Is a Monument? (12 Akademika Blokhinoy Street)
  4. web.archive.org — "Old Nizhny. People. Streets. Courtyards" — description of a cultural heritage site (web archive copy) — 12 Irina Blokhina Street — the house of A. A. Chistyakova (archive)
  5. opentextnn.ru — "Open Text" — archival study on the history of the House of Industry — Krasnov V. V. The Nizhny Novgorod House of Industry: On the Author of the Design, the Dating of the Building, and the Progress of Construction Work (archive)
  6. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — local-history essay on Varvarskaya Street — What Varvarskaya Street Is Famous For (archive)
  7. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — Restoration of the House of the noblewoman Avdotya Chistyakova on Blokhina Street in Nizhny Novgorod began with a volunteer cleanup day (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod City Administration — list of cultural heritage sites for which protection zones are being established, March 23, 2021 (web archive copy) (archive)
  9. cyberleninka.ru — Journal "Public Health and Habitat," 2021 — anniversary essay by institute staff — On the 100th Anniversary of Academician I. N. Blokhina
  10. names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — entry on I. N. Blokhina — Blokhina Irina Nikolaevna (archive)
  11. names52.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Biographical Encyclopedia — entry on N. N. Blokhin — Blokhin Nikolay Nikolaevich (archive)
  12. biblmr.r52.ru — Centralized Library System of the Moskovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod — local-history tour materials (archive)
  13. sergiev.ru — Sergiev Posad online magazine — biographical note — Vladimir Mikhaylovich Zagorsky (archive)
  14. nn.aif.ru — "Argumenty i Fakty — Nizhny Novgorod" — Repairs Begin on Akademika Blokhinoy Street in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  15. nn.ginfo.ru — Geographic directory of Nizhny Novgorod streets — length, buildings, and intersections — Akademika I. N. Blokhinoy Street on the Map of Nizhny Novgorod
  16. GIPERNN — building card with year of construction — 5 Akademika Blokhinoy St. — Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  17. GIPERNN — building card with year of construction — 7 Akademika Blokhinoy St. — Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  18. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — essay on the history and present-day life of Nizhpoligraf — House of Industry, Printing House, and Art Space: What Lies Within the Walls of Nizhpoligraf (archive)
  19. irgsno.ru — Institute for the Development of the Urban Environment of Nizhny Novgorod Region — cluster concept — Concept for the Development of the Nizhpoligraf Cluster