The income house of Nikolai Alexandrovich Bugrov with a branch of the Volga-Kama Commercial Bank is a late-19th-century architectural monument on Rozhdestvenskaya, in the historic centre of Nizhny Novgorod. The building was erected in the 1890s in connection with preparations for the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition of 1896; from the outset it was conceived as an income property — with shops on the ground floor and rentable space on the upper floors, as well as a bank branch.[1]
History of the plot and construction
From the mid-19th century, the plot facing both Rozhdestvenskaya Street and the Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment belonged to the merchant Bugrov family. According to a valuation register of 1874, Bugrov owned two adjoining properties here. The first, at No. 26, comprised a three-storey stone house and a single-storey stone outbuilding; its net annual income was 945 roubles, with a valuation of 9,450 roubles. The second, a corner property under the double number 1 and 25 (at the corner of Troitsky Lane, now Vakhitov Lane), consisted of a three-storey stone house, two stone outbuildings of two and three storeys, and stone and wooden service structures; it was let under contracts and yielded 3,150 roubles of net income, being valued at 31,500 roubles.[1]
The commercial and office character of the buildings reflected Rozhdestvenskaya Street's position as the centre of Nizhny Novgorod's business and trading life. Preparations for the 1896 exhibition triggered, in the assessment of historian Yu. N. Bubnov, a "veritable building boom" in the city: new mansions and bank buildings appeared on the Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment and Rozhdestvenskaya Street, and many old houses acquired new façades with lavish eclectic decorative elements.[1]
The heir to the plot, Nikolai Alexandrovich Bugrov — the leading Nizhny Novgorod industrialist and financier — considered the "modest" appearance of his father's houses insufficiently representative. To design the new building, Vladimir Tseidler was invited, who had come to Nizhny Novgorod as chief works producer for the same exhibition. Copies of the house's design drawings survive in the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod Region)))).[1]
Function and tenants
The building was designed from the outset as an income property: the ground floor was allotted to shops, while the upper floors were let out. Its best-known tenant was the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Volga-Kama Commercial Bank, which gave the house its common historical name — "the Volga-Kama Bank building." It was this banking function that shaped the object's public image in the city's memory, although formally the house always remained income property of the Bugrovs.[1]
Architectural context
The house is part of the dense Historic Buildings, which has on the whole preserved its late-19th- to early-20th-century appearance. Land on this street was among the most expensive urban real estate, which accounted for the close spacing of the buildings. Neighbouring structures on Rozhdestvenskaya are likewise linked to the names of major merchant families — Rukavishnikovs and others — and represent various styles of the same era: eclecticism, rational Art Nouveau.[4] The Bugrov house with the bank branch is recognised as an architectural monument.[1]
Sources
- opentextnn.ru — Davydov A.I. Income House of N.A. Bugrov with a Branch of the Volga-Kama Bank (27 Rozhdestvenskaya St.) — OTKRYTY TEKST (archive)
- tripguide.guru — Rozhdestvenskaya Street in Nizhny Novgorod — a review of historical and picturesque places with photos and descriptions
- skstudenec.cz (archive)
- skstudenec.cz (archive)