Bolshaya Yamskaya — a historic street of Nizhny Novgorod, which continued Ilyinskaya from the Ilyinskaya barrier — a toll gate near the present-day intersection with Malaya Pokrovskaya — to the Krestovozdvizhensky Monastery and the Arzamas barrier, that is, to the present-day Lyadov Square.[1] It took shape at the end of the eighteenth century along the Murom–Moscow tract as the main street of the Yamskaya Sloboda.[2] During the Soviet era it was merged with Ilyinskaya into a single thoroughfare, and after historical names were restored in 1991 the name Bolshaya Yamskaya disappeared from the city map, even though the parallel Malaya and Tretya Yamskaya streets survived.[3][4]
Yamskaya Sloboda
Ilyinskaya Street had long been home to yamshchiks (coachmen): in 1699 around a hundred yamshchiks in state service were resettled here.[1] Following the general land survey of the city in 1784–1787, the formerly tax-exempt yamshchik homesteads on Ilyinskaya Hill were ordered to be assessed for state taxes, and those unwilling to pay were directed to settle on former pasture lands beyond the city boundary.[1] This was how the Yamskaya Sloboda arose beyond the toll gate, stretching along the road to Moscow in a straight street running to the south-west; it was designed by the first provincial architect, Yakov Ananyin.[2][1]
On the 1799 map, Bolshaya Yamskaya is shown as an established residential street, with rope factories fronting onto it — they occupied the area around what is now Gorky Square.[1] The master plan of 1824 provided for Malaya and Tretya Yamskaya Streets running parallel to it, along with three cross streets leading to the bank of the Oka, one of which became the future Pryadilnaya — now Maslyakova Street.[2][1] The general plan of 1839 eliminated the rope factories: in their place appeared residential blocks and Novo-Bazarnaya Square.[1]
The built environment remained distinctly peripheral. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the street consisted of single-storey wooden houses with three windows, pitched roofs, and a side porch; the state coachmen who had once lived here gave way to raznochintsy, retired soldiers, craftsmen, and peasants who had resettled in the city.[1] A directory of 1895 described Bolshaya and Malaya Yamskaya as "the most out-of-the-way streets in Nizhny Novgorod."[1]
The fire of 1839 and the Kizevetter ensemble
On 22 August 1839, a fire devastated the street, burning for nearly nine hours: three stone houses and thirty wooden ones were destroyed, including a parish school and a tavern. The fire swept up Bolshaya Yamskaya as far as the present-day Maslyakova Street and down Ilyinka as far as house no. 64.[5]
On receiving a report of the fire, Nicholas I demanded that the Governor move quickly with a plan for rebuilding the burnt part of the city. In mid-September, the municipal architect Georg Kizevetter set about designing a full three dozen houses at once; the Emperor personally approved fifteen stone and six wooden façades on 23 March 1840.[5] Construction was funded through long-term government loans from the relief fund established in Nizhny Novgorod in 1836: the merchant Vereninov, for example, was directed to receive ten thousand roubles.[5]
The streets were built up between 1840 and 1843, forming an architectural ensemble of the Nicholaevan era — houses nos. 64–100 on what is now Ilyinskaya Street, which have survived to the present day.[2] In the Vereninov house, the ground floor was occupied by shops, while the upper floor housed hotel rooms considered the finest on Bolshaya Yamskaya.[5]
How the street lost its name
Before the revolution, Ilyinskaya ended at Malaya Pokrovskaya Street, beyond which Bolshaya Yamskaya began. In the early years of Soviet Power, both sections were merged into a single thoroughfare 2,382 metres long, and in 1924 it was renamed Krasnoflyotskaya — in honour of the river sailors who had taken part in the Civil War.[3]
In August 1991, the toponymy commission attached to the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Russian Cultural Foundation submitted to Mayor Dmitry Bednyakov a list of approximately sixty streets, squares, and lanes for which it requested the restoration of their historical names. Krasnoflyotskaya became Ilyinskaya — along its entire length, including the former Bolshaya Yamskaya.[6] Property numbers are counted from the Kremlin, so a house that in 1874 bore the number 37 on Bolshaya Yamskaya now carries the numbers 117 and 119 on Ilyinskaya.[1]
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| before the 1780s | no street existed: beyond the Ilyinsky Gate there was a checkpoint and open fields began |
| around 1784 | the Yamskaya Sloboda and Bolshaya Yamskaya Street took shape beyond the checkpoint |
| early years of Soviet Power | Bolshaya Yamskaya was merged with Ilyinskaya into a thoroughfare 2,382 metres long |
| 1924 | the merged street was renamed Krasnoflotsksaya |
| 1991 | the name Ilyinskaya was restored along its entire length; the name Bolshaya Yamskaya disappeared |
The present-day Ilyinskaya Street was called Krasnoflotsksaya during the Soviet years. Then the historical name was restored — but in the process Bolshaya Yamskaya Street, into which Ilyinskaya had continued, was lost. Visitors ask: "There's Malaya Yamskaya, there's Tretya Yamskaya. So where is Bolshaya?" It existed, but got lost in the renamings. Nobody checked, nobody thought it through.[4]
What remains
The historic building line of the former Bolshaya Yamskaya Street can still be read in the houses along present-day Ilyinskaya: the Karamzina–Smirnov estate (nos. 112–114), the mansion of the merchant's widow Guzeeva (no. 126), and houses nos. 110 and 141.[7] The Bolshie Ovragi area has retained an intact ensemble of 19th-century wooden architecture.[8]
The state of this heritage remains dire. In September 2013, house no. 126 was demolished; local historian Alexander Davydov, writing in 2024, listed the former Ilyinskaya, 64 and Malaya Yamskaya, 19 among the cultural heritage sites that had been reduced to vacant lots.[9] In March 2026, the Ministry of Property Relations initiated the seizure of six houses on Ilyinskaya at once, two of which are listed monuments; the owners of house no. 117 — the very one that had been Bolshaya Yamskaya, 37 — demolished it themselves, and the state of emergency was lifted from the site.[10]
See also
Sources
- opentextnn.ru — Otkryty Tekst — Davydov A. I. Nizhny Novgorod. Ilyinskaya Street, 117–119: the construction history of the properties (archive)
- opentextnn.ru — Otkryty Tekst — Research and Production Institute "Etnos". Historic territory "Old Nizhny Novgorod", vol. 6: the landmark area of Zapochaine (archive)
- Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — 2,382 metres of history and contrasts: a walk along the merchant street of Ilyinskaya, 19 May 2021 (archive)
- MK — Nizhny Novgorod — MK in Nizhny Novgorod — Nikolay Morokhin. Why it matters to know what streets were called in the past, 15 February 2018 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Central City Library of Nizhny Novgorod — Ilyinskaya Street: the fire of 22 August 1839 and the development by G. I. Kizevetter (archived copy) (archive)
- V gorode N — The old "new" name: how streets were restored to their historic names in 1991, 25 June 2012 (archive)
- opentextnn.ru — Otkryty Tekst — The urban estate ensemble of M. P. Karamzina — A. K. Smirnov (Ilyinskaya, 112–114) (archive)
- opentextnn.ru — Otkryty Tekst — Mareeva E. E. The formation of wooden architecture in nineteenth-century Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
- opentextnn.ru — Otkryty Tekst — Davydov A. I. And ancient Nizhny will be "reset to zero", 19 August 2024 (archive)
- GiperNN — GiperNN — Mass requisition: which houses are being seized in the centre of Nizhny Novgorod, 13 March 2026 (archive)