City of Gorky — the official name of Nizhny Novgorod from October 7, 1932 to October 22, 1990.[1][2] The name of the writer Maxim Gorky, a native of the city, was bestowed to mark the fortieth anniversary of his literary career.[1] Under this name the city became one of the country's principal centers of the defense industry, was closed to foreign visitors from 1959 to 1991,[3] and from 1980 to 1986 served as the place of exile for Academician Andrei Sakharov.[4] The historic name was restored by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR: the city bore the name "Gorky" for 58 years and 20 days.[2]

The 1932 Renaming

The resolution on the renaming was adopted by the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee on October 7, 1932, timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of Maxim Gorky's literary career.[1] The campaign for the new name was conducted through the press: the newspaper Nizhegorodskaya Kommuna reported that the proposal had been put forward by a Sormovo worker named Ovsyannikov and supported by a stevedore named Karnadsky on behalf of the workers of the Nizhny Novgorod port and by an automobile-plant worker named Baruzdin.[1]

Following the city, the region and its enterprises also changed their names. The Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Plant, which had entered service on January 1, 1932 and produced its first one-and-a-half-ton truck under the designation NAZ-AA on January 29, became the Gorky Automobile Plant, and its truck became the GAZ-AA.[5]

The concept for a monument to the writer emerged in 1936, an all-union competition was held in 1939, but construction was interrupted by the war. The seven-meter bronze figure by Vera Mukhina was unveiled on the former First of May Square only in 1952; the square was subsequently renamed Gorky Square.[6]

Center of the Defense Industry

In the 1930s the region was one vast construction site: over the course of that decade, an automobile plant, an aviation plant, a machine-building plant, a milling-machine plant, a glassworks in Bor, a pulp-and-paper mill in Balakhna, and chemical facilities in Dzerzhinsk all came on line, while the established Nizhny Novgorod factories — Krasnoye Sormovo, Krasnaya Etna, and Dvigatel Revolyutsii ("Engine of the Revolution") — underwent major reconstruction.[7]

On the eve of the war, 44 of the region's 194 industrial enterprises were engaged in defense production.[7] It was precisely this concentration of military industry that determined both the city's role in the war and its closed status for the three decades that followed.

Great Patriotic War

Over the years of the war, the Military Enlistment Offices of Gorky Region sent 822,000 men to the front; more than 100,000 joined the people's militia; and 79 Red Army formations and units were raised on the region's territory.[7]

On 23 October 1941 the Gorky City Defense Committee was established, headed by the first secretary of the regional committee, Mikhail Rodionov. Its principal concern was the defensive line: by January 1942, a force of 350,000 workers had built 1,134 kilometers of fortifications, 2,332 firing positions, and 4,788 dugouts.[7]

The city endured its first German air raid on the night of 4–5 November 1941 (Air Raid of November 4): of roughly 150 bombers dispatched, eleven broke through to the city, damaging the Lenin Plant, the Dvigatel Revolyutsii works, and the automobile plant.[7] The heaviest bombardment came in June 1943: between 5 and 22 June the city withstood 25 raids involving 655 aircraft, which dropped 1,631 high-explosive bombs and 33,934 incendiary bombs on it. The worst damage fell on the Avtozavod district — 50 buildings were destroyed or damaged; 35,000 Gorky residents turned out to restore the workshops, and they completed the job in a hundred days.[7]

Over four years, Gorky's factories supplied the front with 38,318 tanks and self-propelled guns (37 percent of total Allied output), 101,673 artillery pieces (23.9 percent), 16,324 combat aircraft, and 22 submarines (43.1 percent).[7] The region operated 171 evacuation hospitals with 71,640 beds, through which 422,949 wounded passed.[7]

More than 300 Gorky residents became Heroes of the Soviet Union, and more than 300,000 were awarded military orders and medals.[7]

Strategic targets of the city in 1941

The list of targets against which the German air force operated in the summer of 1941 is given in this article based on the book "Swastika over the Volga. The Luftwaffe against Stalin's Air Defenses."

Closed City

On 4 August 1959, the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a decree closing the city of Gorky to visits by foreigners.[3] The reason was the defense plants and design bureaus: according to records of the time, in 1956 the city was visited by 78 foreign guests, among whom 22 were identified as intelligence agents, and in 1957 by 245 foreigners, including 26 agents; the visitors showed particular interest in city maps, the locations of military units, and the approaches to Krasnoye Sormovo and the aviation plant.[3]

The city remained closed for 32 years. The restriction was lifted on 6 September 1991, after the city had already been restored its historic name.[3]

The Postwar City

The city grew around its factories: over the Soviet decades its population increased more than tenfold compared to pre-revolutionary Nizhny Novgorod, and according to the 1989 census, Gorky had 1,438,133 inhabitants.[8]

On 20 November 1985 at 5:30 a.m., the first train of the Gorky Metro left its depot; construction had taken eight years.[9]

The everyday urban life of those decades — Volga river steamers, the first hydrofoil catamarans, queues and counters of state shops — is visible in photographs that have survived from that era.

Andrei Sakharov's Gorky Exile

On 22 January 1980, Academician Andrei Sakharov was detained on his way to work and exiled without trial to Gorky — a city closed to foreigners — in response to his public statements against the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan.[4] Sakharov and his wife Elena Bonner were housed in Apartment 3 at 214 Gagarin Avenue, in the Scherbinki microdistrict.[4]

During his exile, Sakharov remained a research fellow at FIAN, writing and publishing academic papers, though all his communications were under surveillance.[10] He undertook three hunger strikes — one lasting seventeen days, another lasting twenty-six days in May 1984, and one from April to October 1985 — in an effort to obtain permission for Elena Bonner to travel abroad for surgery.[10]

On 16 December 1986, Mikhail Gorbachev permitted Sakharov to return to Moscow; the exile had lasted nearly seven years.[4] In 1991, a memorial museum-apartment of Academician Sakharov opened in the same flat.[10]

Restoration of the Name

The question of restoring the city's historic name was put to a public vote in March 1990, held alongside elections to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR: the majority voted in favour.[1] The matter was formally set in motion by the chairman of the city council, Omari Sharadze.[1]

On 22 October 1990, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR restored the city's name of Nizhny Novgorod.[2] It lost its closed-city status almost a year later, on 6 September 1991.[3]

The city's name after 1990

The old name survived the renaming in dozens of proper nouns. The automobile plant kept the GAZ brand; the Gorky Railway remains a branch of Russian Railways — as of August 2026 it is still referred to as the Gorky Main Line.[11]

The name also returned to the city's toponymy: on 4 November 2012, the Gorkovskaya metro station opened in the Upper Town, named after Gorky Square, onto which it exits.[12]

A photographic chronicle of the decades

Photographs of the city taken during the years when it was called Gorky.

Gorky Krai in the 1930s: An Essay Based on Archival Documents

The following essay was prepared from documents held at the State Public-Political Archive of Nizhny Novgorod Region by staff members of the Document Publication and Use Department, M. A. Marchenko and T. G. Dobrovolskaya. It is printed as written.[7]

In the 1930s, Gorky Oblast gave the impression of one vast, uninterrupted construction site. No other city in the Soviet Union could match our city at that time in the number of facilities under construction or in the sheer scale of building activity. During this period, the Gorky automobile, aviation, and machine-building plants, as well as a milling-machine factory, were commissioned. In Dzerzhinsk, major chemical-industry enterprises were built; in Bor, a glass plant; in Balakhna, a pulp-and-paper mill; and so on.

At the same time, the old Nizhny Novgorod factories — Krasnoye Sormovo, Krasnaya Etna, Dvigatel Revolyutsii (Engine of Revolution), and the metallurgical plants of the cities of Gorky, Vyksa, and Kulebaki — were reconstructed and technically re-equipped.

Light and food industries also developed: pasta and confectionery factories were built, bread and dairy plants and mills were mechanized. The leading industrial branches were machine and machine-tool building, metalworking, and chemicals.

Industrial enterprises of the city and region competed to fulfill their output plans. Toward this end, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued its decrees of 26 June 1940 "On the Transition to an Eight-Hour Working Day, a Seven-Day Working Week, and on the Prohibition of Unauthorized Departure of Workers and Employees from Enterprises and Institutions," and of 10 July 1940 "On Liability for the Production of Substandard Goods."

On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, many enterprises, alongside civilian output, began producing military equipment, machinery, and supplies. Of the 194 enterprises operating in Gorky Oblast at the beginning of 1941, 44 were working for the defense effort.

To strengthen the country's defense capacity and supply industry with skilled personnel, the bureau of the Gorky Oblast Committee of the VKP(b) adopted a resolution on 20 August 1940 on organizing 48 new factory apprenticeship schools (FZU) and expanding enrollment at 49 existing schools, bringing the total number of students to 29,450.

Rural workers faced the task of transforming the region from one that primarily consumed agricultural products into one that could produce them and feed itself. However, 1938 and 1939 proved unfavorable for agriculture: many districts suffered from drought, winter crops and perennial grasses perished, and yields were low — an average of 7.5 centners of grain per hectare. In 1940, the harvest averaged 10.5 centners per hectare. In 1938–1939, sown areas shrank, including those under grain crops and potatoes. Livestock farming faced many problems, having been especially hard hit by the slaughter of cattle during the forced collectivization drive. In 1939, the region's livestock sector stood at the level of 1932.

In 1940, the government allocated 2 million rubles for the creation of a vegetable-farming operation to supply the population of the city of Gorky; in collective farms of the suburban zone, vegetable and potato plantings were expanded.

Before the war, 94 machine-tractor stations had been established in the region. Despite enormous difficulties, the region's rural workers largely managed to provide the growing urban population with food and industry with raw materials, and participated in building up the reserves and mobilization stockpiles of foodstuffs needed in the event of war. The best farms took part in the agricultural exhibitions of national economic achievements in Moscow.

The people of Gorky went about their peacetime work while anxiously following newspaper reports of the Second World War's flames burning ever stronger and drawing ever closer to the USSR's borders. Yet they still hoped that if war came, it would not come soon.

The People of Gorky and the Great Patriotic War: An Essay Based on Archival Documents

Staff members of the Document Publication and Use Department of the State Institution OPANO, M. A. Marchenko and T. G. Dobrovolskaya

The Beginning of the War

Over the entire course of the Great Patriotic War, the military enlistment offices of Gorky Oblast mobilized 822,000 residents of Gorky for the front.

A few hours after the war began on 22 June 1941, a radio address to the Soviet people called on them to rise in defense of the Fatherland; that same day, an emergency edition of the newspaper "Gorkovskaya Kommuna" was published.

A mass rally attended by many thousands took place on Sovetskaya Square (now Minin and Pozharsky Square), where I. M. Guryev, Secretary of the Gorky Oblast Committee of the VKP(b), addressed those gathered. Densely attended rallies and meetings swept across the entire region in a wave.

In resolutions adopted at the rallies, the people of Gorky expressed their readiness "to take up arms and fight the enemy" and "to give all their strength, and if necessary their lives, for a complete victory over the fascist invaders." On the second day of the war, all newspapers published the decrees of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on martial law and on the declaration of mobilization across a number of military districts.

From 23 June, mobilization of those liable for military service born in 1905–1918 began in Gorky Oblast. Draftees born in 1919–1921 were already serving in the Red Army and were the first to meet the enemy.

On the very first day of the war, without waiting for call-up notices, 5,486 applications were submitted to the military enlistment offices of the city of Gorky, and up to 10,000 across the region. Local authorities at all levels adopted resolutions to carry out mobilization. Ten assembly points for those liable for military service were organized in the city, located in schools, the Palace of Culture of Plant No. 92, the Krinov Club, and at the Vodnik and Torpedo stadiums. Between 800 and 1,000 people passed through these points each day.

Over the course of the Great Patriotic War, 79 Red Army formations and units were organized on the territory of Gorky Oblast, including: the 89th (160th) Guards Belgorod-Kharkov Division, the 322nd Zhitomir, 42nd Pryluky, and 85th Guards Riga Rifle Divisions, the 8th Guards Tank Corps, the 27th Guards Tank Brigade named after the NKSM, the 31st Special Gorky-Warsaw Armored Train Division, and others. All military units and formations completed a difficult combat path, were awarded decorations and commendations from the Supreme Command, and a number of divisions and brigades were honored with the Guards designation.

In July 1941, the formation of a people's militia (narodnoe opolcheniye) began in Gorky Oblast. Workers and engineers, doctors and teachers, students and pensioners who were subject to military service and those who were not — all who were capable of bearing arms — were called into the militia. Although only men were officially called up, women also submitted applications. By 25 July, 61,112 people in the city of Gorky had enrolled in the people's militia; 44,392 were accepted, of whom 16,506 were women. Across the region as a whole, more than 100,000 people joined the people's militia. Medical personnel were trained within the militia units, and combat training was conducted according to a unified plan. The militia served as a reserve for the Red Army. From 25 June 1941, destroyer detachments began to be formed on the territory of Gorky Oblast, tasked with guarding industrial facilities, railway structures, and power stations, and with combating enemy airborne landings and reconnaissance groups.

In the autumn of 1941, the destroyer detachments were reorganized into 74 destroyer battalions and several ski units. Overall command of the destroyer battalions was exercised by the regional headquarters of the UNKVD for Gorky Oblast. The destroyer battalions fought against parachute landings, saboteurs, and spies, and assisted the militia (police) in maintaining public order.

From the personnel of the destroyer battalions, 2 battalions and a destroyer-partisan group were formed, successfully carrying out special assignments from the commands of the Western and Northwestern Fronts. Gorky detachments operated behind enemy lines in Moscow, Leningrad, Smolensk, Pskov, and other oblasts.

Gorky as a Front-Line City

Gorky, as a major industrial center of the country, had come to the aggressor's attention already during the drafting of his plan for the destruction of the USSR, known as Operation Barbarossa.

Under that plan, the Germans expected to capture Moscow in the first days of September 1941 and to enter the city of Gorky in early October.

In the autumn of 1941, the German-fascist forces of Army Group Center were advancing on Moscow, and the Red Army was engaged in the most grueling fighting.

On 22 October 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) decided to establish defense committees in 46 cities, including the city of Gorky. On 23 October, the Gorky City Defense Committee (GGKO) was created in the city of Gorky. It was headed by Mikhail Ivanovich Rodionov, First Secretary of the Gorky Oblast and City Committees of the VKP(b). The GGKO was a local emergency governing body for wartime conditions. It united civilian and military authority in the city and region. The decisions of the GGKO were carried out without question.

A particular concern of the GGKO was the construction of defensive lines, which began in October 1941. By November 10, a decision had been made to build the Gorky defensive perimeter, and by November 15 — defensive lines along the left bank of the Volga and along the Oka River, with a perimeter for the defense of the city of Muroma.

Civilians were mobilized for construction work under a labor-duty system; students of higher educational institutions, upperclassmen at technical colleges, and pupils in grades 9–10 were also permitted to be drafted. A total of 350,000 people took part in building the defensive fortifications. They dug trenches and anti-tank ditches, built pillboxes, created roadblocks on forest roads, and erected obstacles. By January 1942, construction of the defensive line was complete. It stretched 1,134 km — roughly equivalent to 75% of the Fergana Canal.

Under the conditions of autumn and the harsh winter of 1941–1942, approximately 12 million cubic meters of earthworks were carried out, 2,332 firing positions were built, and 4,788 dugouts were constructed.

For exemplary fulfillment of the GKO's assignments in building the defensive line and perimeters around the cities of Gorky and Muroma, 80 participants in the construction were awarded orders and medals. Ten thousand one hundred and eighty-six builders of the defensive line were recognized with Honorary Certificates from the city defense committee, and 873 people received bonuses.

Repair and construction work on the defensive lines in the region then continued throughout 1942 and was only halted after our army's victory at Kursk in 1943.

With the outbreak of war, air defense of the city of Gorky became a matter of the utmost importance. The first enemy air raid on the city took place on the night of November 4–5, 1941. It involved groups of Heinkel-111 and Junkers-88 bombers — up to 150 aircraft in total, of which only 11 broke through to the city. Nevertheless, they caused significant damage to the Lenin Plant, the Engine of the Revolution Plant, and the automobile plant. The raid was repeated on the night of November 5–6 (14 of the 150 aircraft broke through). They inflicted casualties on the civilian population and damaged a number of shops at the Avtozavod. During the bombing raids on those days, 127 people were killed, 176 were seriously wounded, and 195 were lightly wounded. Following these raids, the Gorky Brigade Air Defense District, which had been guarding the city, was incorporated into the active Red Army.

Enemy aircraft raids on the city of Gorky also occurred in 1942. In 1943, as the Germans prepared for the Battle of Kursk, they mounted a large-scale bombing operation. Enemy aviation made an attempt to destroy the industrial center that was supplying the front with weapons. From June 5 to June 22, 1943, the city endured 25 air raids. A total of 655 enemy aircraft took part, of which 100 broke through to the Avtozavod. The city was struck by 1,631 high-explosive bombs and 33,934 incendiary bombs.

The Avtozavod suffered particularly severe damage. Fifty buildings and structures were destroyed or damaged.

Thirty-five thousand residents of Gorky came to rebuild the Avtozavod's ruined factory buildings and managed to do so in just 100 days.

All districts of the city of Gorky and the surrounding region lent assistance in repairing the damage to the Avtozavod and its residential settlements.

Contributions to the war effort

From the very first days of the war, various forms of the patriotic movement "In Aid of the Front" began springing up everywhere at the initiative of working people. Workers in the city and countryside donated a portion of their wages to the country's Defense Fund, made voluntary contributions, paid off state loans ahead of schedule, and arts workers staged performances and concerts. Over-plan hectares were sown for the Defense Fund, and various valuables, warm clothing, and foodstuffs were contributed. According to a report from N. Gulyaev, manager of the Gorky Regional branch of the USSR State Bank, from the start of the war through October 1, 1943, a total of 328 million 896 thousand rubles reached the country's Defense Fund from the population of the city of Gorky and the region, including 310 million 22 thousand rubles designated for the construction of tanks and aircraft.

The working people of the region built tanks, aircraft, and armored trains with their own hands and with their own money, and presented them to the defenders of the Motherland. As early as autumn 1941, the pioneers of School No. 102 in the Kirovsky District of Gorky issued an appeal to all Gorky pioneers and schoolchildren to raise funds for the construction of a tank to be named "Gorky Pioneer." On January 18, 1942, the completed tank set off for the front.

Over the course of the war, seven tanks and an aircraft, all named "Gorky Pioneer," were built with funds collected by the region's pioneers and schoolchildren.

The call issued in May 1942 by Komsomol members at the S. Ordzhonikidze Aviation Plant to raise funds for the construction of an aviation squadron named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya found a warm response in the hearts of Gorky's residents. They collected scrap metal, organized concerts, and volunteered for overtime work. On June 15, 1942, the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya aviation squadron flew out to the front.

Young automobile workers took the initiative in raising funds for the "Gorky Komsomol" tank column.

At the initiative of railway workers from Gorky and Muroma, and funded by them, the armored trains "Kuzma Minin" and "Ilya Muromets" were built at the start of 1942 and incorporated into the 31st Special Gorky-Warsaw Armored Train Division.

In December 1942, a call rang out across the entire region — issued by the collective farmers of Chkalovsky District — to raise funds for the construction of an aviation squadron named "Valery Chkalov." The fundraising drive became a genuinely mass movement. A report on incoming funds submitted to the Gorky Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) for M. I. Rodionov shows that by January 28, 1943, the region's working people had contributed 110 million 194 thousand rubles for the construction of aviation squadrons named after V. P. Chkalov, and 200 thousand rubles for the construction of a squadron named after Alexander Nevsky. In total, over the course of the war, Gorky's residents contributed more than 114 million rubles toward the construction of the V. P. Chkalov aviation squadrons. Using funds raised by the working people of Gorky Region, 48 tanks and 6 aircraft had been built by June 1, 1943.

The patriotic movement of Gorky's residents was endorsed by the country's leadership. Government telegrams conveyed words of gratitude. One of them, bearing the signature of I. V. Stalin, was sent on April 9, 1943, to the working people of the Sverdlovsky District of Gorky, expressing thanks for their contributions to the tank column fund.

In autumn 1941, the region's working people began collecting warm clothing for the soldiers of the Red Army. On September 6, 1941, a regional commission for the collection of warm clothing and linen for the Red Army was established; it operated until the end of the war. From the start of the war through September 1943, the region's population contributed 27,000 sheepskin coats, 11,000 vests, 29,000 padded jackets, 77,000 pairs of felt boots, and 86,000 fur-lined hats.

During the war years, it became a cherished tradition to send gifts to the soldiers on significant dates — New Year's, Soviet Army Day, May Day, the anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Hundreds of thousands of kilograms of various foodstuffs were delivered to active units and formations: sausage, meat, sugar, honey, cheese, biscuits, sweets, millions of tins of preserves, as well as vast quantities of soap, tobacco, cigarettes, and various everyday necessities. Schoolchildren and vocational students took an active part in preparing gifts for the soldiers. Parcels to the front were accompanied by heartfelt letters addressed to the fighters, and even poems. And from the front, letters arrived at the Gorky Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) from Red Army commanders and soldiers expressing gratitude for the gifts they had received.

Over the course of the war, Gorky's residents sent more than 800,000 gifts of various kinds to the front, a testament to the unbreakable bond between the front lines and the home front.

The region's agriculture during the war years

Over the years of the Great Patriotic War, Gorky's collective farmers delivered to the state approximately 70 million poods of grain, tens of thousands of tons of potatoes and vegetables, and thousands of tons of meat, butter, milk, and other produce.

At the start of the war, conditions in the collective-farm countryside became extremely difficult. The majority of men had gone to the front. In the first year of the war alone, 300,000 people were called up into the Red Army from the region's collective farms. Draft animal power fell sharply. Nevertheless, despite the hardships brought on by the war, women, elderly people, schoolchildren, and students conducted the harvest of 1941 in a fighting spirit, with every ounce of their strength. From dawn to dusk, a genuine battle for bread was waged. The region's collective farms gathered a record harvest — 12 centners per hectare. It was the highest yield in the previous three years.

The spring sowing and harvest of 1942 took place under exceptionally difficult conditions. Shortages of skilled machine operators had to be made good, additional draft resources and spare parts had to be found, seed supply issues had to be resolved, and so on. On the eve of the spring sowing, the wives and sisters of frontline soldiers at the "12 Years of October" collective farm in Gorodetsky District pledged to earn no fewer than 350 workdays in 1942 — and successfully fulfilled that pledge. The spring sowing was completed 18 days ahead of schedule, and the harvest 30 days earlier than in 1941. The collective farms of the region increased their sown areas by more than 150,000 hectares.

Gorky Region was the first in the country to fulfill its grain procurement plan. The state plan for livestock development was also successfully met. For achievements in the All-Union Socialist Competition among agricultural workers in 1942, Gorky Region was awarded the GKO's Challenge Red Banner and second prize for high crop yields. In 1943, the spring sowing was completed 16 days ahead of the 1942 schedule. And on October 26, 1943 — 56 days ahead of the 1942 deadline — Gorky Region settled its grain procurement obligations with the state in full.

The socialist competition among rural youth grew into a major movement. As early as 1941, Komsomol members of Buturlinskiy District took the initiative of preparing dried food products for the Red Army. This labor initiative was taken up by many of the region's collective farms.

In autumn 1942, at the initiative of Komsomol members from Bogorodsky and Vetluzhskiy District, a "Week of Red Convoys" was held across Gorky Region. The Komsomol members pledged to complete grain deliveries to the state within a week. They worked through the night mowing, stacking, and threshing — and kept their word. For active participation in agricultural work, the regional Komsomol organization was awarded the Challenge Red Banner of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League.

The results of work during the sowing and harvest campaigns were covered in special issues of the newspaper Gorkovskaya Kommuna.

City residents came to the aid of agricultural workers. In 1943 and 1944, more than 240,000 urban residents traveled out to the region's collective farms.

Industrial enterprises adopted collective farms and machine-and-tractor stations as their wards, providing assistance with equipment repairs, the manufacture of spare parts, and the carrying out of agricultural work. Research staff at the Gorky Agricultural Institute developed a method for rapid drying of vegetables (potatoes and onions), which was successfully applied in the region's collective farms, and introduced new types of crops into production (kok-saghyz, sugar beet, sunflower, and medicinal herbs).

University students and faculty helped rural residents with spring sowing and harvesting. For example, Fokeeva, a third-year student at the agronomy faculty of the Gorky Agricultural Institute, harvested 230 hectares of grain crops by combine during the busy season. Her daily output was 14 hectares instead of the standard 8.

Schoolchildren and students from vocational schools gave great assistance to rural workers in weeding crops, haymaking, and harvesting. An organized gleaning drive by schoolchildren in the autumn of 1942 yielded hundreds of centners of additional grain for the country. Eighty-seven thousand Pioneers and schoolchildren took up patronage of poultry farming. In 1944, five hundred Bogorodsk Pioneers and schoolchildren reported to the regional Pioneer rally on their work: they had raised 400 chicks, procured 5,000 kilograms of feed, and brought 250 hens from their homes to the collective farm poultry yard.

Daily life in the city and region during the war

Life in the cities, as in the countryside, was unimaginably hard and harsh during the war years. In the first days of the war, bread shortages began and people had to stand in enormous queues to buy it. Prices for food products on the markets rose sharply. With a skilled defense-industry worker earning between 400 and 900 rubles, meat at the market cost between 60 and 100 rubles per kilogram, milk 10–15 rubles per liter, butter 100–130 rubles per kilogram, and so on.

Additional difficulties in supplying the population with food were caused by the significant influx of evacuees into the Gorky Region. According to a report by the head of the resettlement department, as of August 20, 1941, 124,467 people had arrived in the region from the frontline zone and from Moscow and Leningrad.

From September 1, 1941, ration cards for bread, sugar, and confectionery were introduced in the city of Gorky and in the towns and urban-type settlements of the Gorky Region, with strict allotment quotas set according to category. First-category workers and engineering-technical personnel were entitled to 800 grams of bread per day, office employees to 500 grams; second-category workers received 600 and 400 grams of bread respectively, while dependents and children under 12 received 400 grams. Later, ration cards were introduced for virtually all food products — grain, meat, and fats — as well as for kerosene and even firewood. Serious difficulties arose not only in supplying the population with food but also in housing the evacuees.

By February 1942, their number had grown to 175,075. It was impossible to settle such a large number of newcomers in the city, so the majority of them, especially women and children, were directed to the rural districts of the region. In the region's cities, every square meter of living space was accounted for; Palaces of Culture and clubs were requisitioned for housing, and by means of doubling up, hundreds of families were quartered.

Evacuation was often carried out in great haste, and as a result many evacuees left without having time to take warm clothing or footwear, and sometimes had not even a change of underwear. Local executive committees were compelled to provide one-time cash assistance to those in urgent need, to resolve questions of employment, fuel supply, and placement of children in childcare institutions.

With the onset of winter, a no less merciless enemy descended upon the city — the cold. The loss of the temporarily occupied territories of the Donbas and Moscow-region coal basins produced an acute fuel shortage.

To link the city with the surrounding forests, a decision was made in July 1943 to build a narrow-gauge railway from Gorky to Kerzhenets. Many of the city's and region's enterprises took part in its construction. The Gorky Machine-Building Plant provided the metal, the Kulebaki Metallurgical Plant rolled it and manufactured the rails, Krasnaya Etna supplied the fastening materials, and Krasnoye Sormovo overhauled old locomotives. Railway workers repaired the freight cars and helped lay the track.

People of all ages and occupations worked on the construction of the railway line. The route from the city to Kerzhenets station stretched 52 kilometers. It was divided into 11 sections — one for each city district — with each district responsible for construction work on its own stretch. Within three months the track-laying was complete, and this made it possible to deliver the necessary fuel to the city. At the same time, another narrow-gauge line was built, connecting the Sormovsky District with the Kablukovskoye peat bog. The war years… They meant enemy air raids and the soul-chilling whistle of falling bombs. German aircraft bombed not only factory buildings but also residential areas. Material assistance was provided to families who had suffered as a result of the enemy air raids.

In those days of severe trials, our fellow countrymen did not grow hard-hearted. Although life was far from easy for them, the people of Gorky sent 128 railway cars of food to the residents of besieged Leningrad in March and November of 1942. The rural districts of the region allocated for the defenders of the city on the Neva 1,200 tons of grain, 200 tons of flour, 154 tons of peas, 197 tons of meat, and more.

Among the first to arrive in 1943 for the reconstruction of Stalingrad were 300 graduates of factory trade schools in the city of Gorky. Every enterprise and institution in our city strove to contribute something to devastated Stalingrad. In the spring of 1943, seven railway echelons, nine steamships, and three barges loaded with industrial goods, equipment, building materials, and supplies were dispatched to assist it. In addition, the people of Dzerzhinsk sent 78 railway cars and those of Balakhna sent 14. The people of Gorky took patronage of the Traktrozavodsky District of the city of Stalingrad and two rural districts. The countryside allocated to the adopted collective farms 3,000 head of cattle, 4,000 sheep, 3,000 pigs, and 5,000 each of ploughs and harrows. Collective farmers ploughed extra "Stalingrad" hectares. Workers at the plant named after V.I. Lenin put in two hours of overtime each day for several months to fulfill Stalingrad orders. The people of Gorky can rightly be proud of having written one of the glorious chapters in the reconstruction of Stalingrad.

Products of the Gorky factories

It was not for nothing that the German air force sought to wipe the factory buildings of the City of Gorky from the face of the earth, for the industry of the Gorky Region began reorganizing its production for the manufacture of weapons and ammunition from the very first days of the war, mastering new types of combat equipment for the Red Army.

The largest enterprise in our region — the Gorky Automobile Plant — became one of the most versatile plants in the country during the years of the Great Patriotic War. It produced T-60 and T-70 tanks (the latter designed at the plant itself), tank engines, armored cars, self-propelled guns, mortars, armor-piercing shells, and rockets for the Katyusha multiple rocket launchers. Automobile production continued, including high-clearance vehicles with two drive axles. In 1942, GAZ-AA one-and-a-half-ton trucks went to the front directly from the factory floor. They were the first to venture out onto the barely frozen ice of Lake Ladoga and the last to leave its ice roads.

The oldest shipbuilding plant, Krasnoye Sormovo (Plant No. 112), in cooperation with the Automobile Plant, the milling machine plant, the Vyksa and Kulebaki metallurgical plants, and other enterprises, began producing medium T-34 tanks in accordance with State Defense Committee Resolution No. 1-ss. The first tanks were sent to the Moscow front as early as October 1941.

By a resolution of December 6, 1941, the State Defense Committee obligated the Krasnoye Sormovo plant to increase the rate of combat vehicle production. By December 20, 1941, the plant was to be producing 5 tanks per day; from December 20, 1941, to January 20, 1942, output was to be raised to 8 per day; and from January 20, 1942, to 10 tanks per day.

In January 1942, the Sormovo workers resumed production of submarines, which had been halted in 1941.

Over the years of the Great Patriotic War, the Sormovo plant supplied the front with 10,159 tanks (10.2% of total Allied production) and 22 submarines (43%). The I.V. Stalin Machine-Building Plant (No. 92) was the leading producer of artillery systems during the war. In 1941, the plant produced 5,600 guns; in 1942, 25,000; and by January 1, 1943, production of divisional guns had been brought to 1,200 per month.

In the first two and a half years of the war, 27 models of various artillery pieces were designed. Shells fired from the 57-mm ZIS-2 gun passed clean through a German tank and kept going. The accuracy was so great that the gun could hit an individual person standing in the open. In February 1942, the ZIS-3 gun was launched into mass production. Light and maneuverable, simple to operate both in battle and on the march, it earned wide recognition in the army.

During the Great Patriotic War, 101,673 guns were produced (23.9% of total Allied production).

The aviation plant named after S. Ordzhonikidze (No. 21) also participated in filling military orders, producing LaGG-3 fighter aircraft in 1941.

In 1942, the plant's workforce mastered production of the La-5 fighter with an air-cooled engine. In 1944, production of the La-7 aircraft model was launched in parallel with the La-5.

The region's aviation industry supplied the front with 16,324 combat aircraft (26% of total All-Union fighter production).

In 1943, specialists at the aviation plant named after S. Ordzhonikidze developed and successfully applied a method for restoring aircraft that had been in accidents and whose repair had previously been considered impossible.

The Borskiy stekolnyy Plant organized the production of "stalinit" glass in September 1941, which was used for the manufacture of transparent armor for ground-attack and fighter aircraft.

The Ulyanov Plant — the only one of its kind in the country — produced specialized shipboard electrical equipment for shipbuilding, coastal installations, and naval vessels.

The V.I. Lenin Radio-Telephone Plant manufactured army-front and divisional radio stations for aircraft and ships. It was the supplier of communication devices for all types of military equipment.

The Krasnaya Etna plant, which produced fasteners, springs, and wire, supplied all of the country's industrial enterprises with cold-rolled strip. The M.V. Frunze Plant mastered the production of radio stations for tanks, self-propelled guns, and armored vehicles.

Until 1943, the main supplier of Katyusha multiple rocket launcher units was the milling machine plant. In the autumn of 1941, 14 divisions (117 units) of rocket artillery were sent to the front. They played an enormous role in the defeat of the German-fascist forces near Moscow.

The 6 chemical plants of Dzerzhinsk also produced output for the front. In June 1941, the Chernorech Chemical Plant managed in 36 hours to assemble a production unit for the self-igniting liquid "KS" and began filling it. Plant No. 80 produced up to 50% of all explosives manufactured in the country, enabling the production of over 3 million shells, mines, and aerial bombs per month.

The metallurgical plants of Vyksa and Kulebaki increased their production of steel and rolled metal. The Gorky Metallurgical Plant mastered the production of high-quality armor steel, sheet metal for rocket launcher units, and ferroalloys. In 1941–1945, the plant smelted nearly 224,000 tons of steel and 255,000 tons of rolled metal. This made it possible to significantly increase production of tanks, aircraft, guns, mortars, and ammunition.

Hospitals and medicine

From the very first days of fierce fighting, the Gorky Region was compelled to receive and treat enormous numbers of wounded. On July 11, 1941, Military Sanitary Train No. 347 arrived in the city of Gorky. According to the evacuation hospital deployment plan for the Gorky Region dated July 9, 1941, it was initially intended to establish hospitals using existing hospitals, sanatoriums, and rest homes, providing 8,270 beds. Subsequently, hospitals were also set up in many schools. At various periods of the war, 171 evacuation hospitals with 71,640 beds functioned in the Gorky Region (including 28 relocated from other regions), where 422,949 Red Army soldiers received treatment. On October 9, 1941, a regional committee for assistance to wounded soldiers and commanders of the Red Army was formed.

Its work was directed by I.M. Guryev, Secretary of the Gorky Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). City and district committees were established locally. They saw their task as providing concrete assistance to the hospitals: receiving the wounded and dispatching the recovered; ensuring a supply of food, fuel, interior fittings, and uninterrupted provision of medicines, dressings, and literature; and providing attentive and caring service to the wounded soldiers.

To accomplish this task, the committees drew extensively on trade unions, the Komsomol, and other public organizations, as well as the intelligentsia, through the patronage of enterprises, institutions, collective farms, and individual citizens over specific hospitals. There was not a single hospital in the region that did not have a patron organization.

Extensive cultural and educational work among the wounded was carried out by arts workers from the city of Gorky and the region, amateur performance groups, and schoolchildren.

Gorky's medical workers demonstrated, through their heroic labor in saving the wounded, an example of tremendous self-sacrifice and courage. At the start of the war there was a shortage of qualified surgeons — one per 1,000 beds. Nearly all had gone to the front. This required intensive, urgent work by the public health authorities to provide both theoretical and practical training for doctors in the shortest possible time.

The workers of Gorky Region showed a great surge of patriotism in saving the lives of wounded Red Army soldiers and officers by supplying them with donor blood. From the very first days of the war, applications for voluntary blood donation began to arrive. Workers, collective farmers, and students became donors. The blood procurement quota was 100 liters (600 donors) per day, not counting local needs. Records submitted by the regional blood transfusion station show that in 1943, 80,666 donors from Gorky Region donated 34,888 liters of blood, exceeding the procurement quota. During the war years, local authorities paid particular attention to the children of servicemen, especially orphans. According to a report on the network and population of children's homes during the Great Patriotic War, Gorky Region had 28 children's homes (2,267 children) on 1 January 1941, and 147 children's homes (11,739 children) on 1 January 1943.

In addition to local children, these homes housed children evacuated from Latvia, Lithuania, Belorussia, Moscow, and Leningrad, as well as 48 children of Polish citizens. In Krasnobakovskiy District, the "Forest Resort" rest home housed an international children's boarding school from the beginning of the war until June 1944, where more than 730 children of Comintern and Central Committee of the MOPR workers lived and were raised. The People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR paid special attention to providing children's homes with everything necessary as quickly as possible, particularly food and fuel.

Komsomol members from the Avtozavod and the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant, workers from the repair plant in Bogorodsk and other workers, and performers from Gorky's theatres and philharmonic society donated their earnings to the fund for assisting the children of servicemen. Commissions were established under the Regional Committee of the VKP(b) to organize gifts for the children of servicemen.

Sanatoria were opened for the treatment of sick children in a number of districts of the region. The Regional Committee of the Komsomol's health resort — the largest children's health facility — served up to 300 children of servicemen per month. The care shown to servicemen's families received a warm response in letters from the front.

Awards to frontline soldiers and factories

On 8 May 1945, the act of Germany's unconditional surrender was signed in Karlshorst, a suburb of Berlin. For the first time in many days of war, a public holiday was declared by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. 9 May 1945 became Victory Day. On 23 June 1945, the 12th session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR passed the law "On the Demobilization of the Senior Age Groups of the Active Army." Demobilization began on 5 July 1945.

On 17 July 1945, at six o'clock in the morning, the first echelon of demobilized soldiers arrived in the city of Gorky. Despite the early hour, thousands of Gorky residents came to meet them. One after another, further echelons continued to arrive.

Special commissions were established in the districts of Gorky Region to organize the reception of demobilized Soviet Army soldiers. They paid great attention to the employment of servicemen, particularly disabled veterans of the Great Patriotic War. Local authorities allocated funds to provide them with everything they needed. In the very first months, around three thousand apartments and rooms were provided to those in the most urgent need; thousands of apartments belonging to servicemen's families and disabled veterans were repaired at the expense of local authorities.

The workers of Gorky Region made a worthy contribution to the national cause of Victory. More than 300 Gorky residents were awarded their country's highest honor — the title of Hero of the Soviet Union — for battlefield valor. The majority received this title during the years of the Great Patriotic War:

Generals Vorozheykin Arseniy Vasilyevich and Ryazanov Vasiliy Georgiyevich became twice Heroes of the Soviet Union.

More than 300,000 of our fellow countrymen were awarded combat orders and medals for their unparalleled feats on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. More than 9,000 Gorky residents — home-front workers — were recognized with government awards.

Many factories of Gorky Region that produced defense products during the war years were also decorated:

The city's geography and layout: a survey from 1972

The following is a description of the city as seen through a geographical survey of 1972; all assessments, figures, and references to "the present" belong to that time.

Where the two naturally distinct parts of Gorky Region converge along the banks of the Volga — the elevated forest-steppe Right Bank and the low-lying forested Zavolzhye — at the confluence of the Oka with the Volga, the city of Gorky spreads out spaciously across a vast territory of 334 square kilometers, one of the largest cities in the country.

Its population exceeds 1.2 million. It is the third largest city in Russia after Moscow and Leningrad.

Compared with pre-revolutionary times, it has grown more than tenfold both in area (the pre-revolutionary area of Nizhny Novgorod within city limits was only 32 sq. km) and in population (on the eve of the October Revolution it had 107,000 inhabitants).

Four-fifths of the territory of the city of Gorky lies in the low-lying left bank of the Oka, and it extends in a broad wedge toward the Strelka — the point where the Oka meets the Volga. Five of the city's eight districts are situated here: Kanavinsky (at the Strelka), Moskovsky, Sormovsky (along the Volga side of Zarechye), Leninsky, and Avtozavodsky (along the Oka side). The elevated, upper part of Gorky contains three districts: Nizhegorodsky (adjoining the Volga and the Oka), Sovetsky, and Prioksky.

The city of Gorky is one of the few cities on the Russian Plain characterized by large differences in elevation. The difference in altitude between the upper town and the riverside districts of Gorky reaches 100 meters. This variation in elevation, combined with the full range of the city's natural conditions, is reflected in its layout, construction, and transport connections.

The upper part of the city spreads across the gently sloping plateau of the Dyatlov Hills, which form the northwestern tip of the Volga Upland. The steep riverbank slopes of the hills — the otkosy — are cut through by deep ravines. Some of these traverse nearly the entire upper portion of the city. In the past, the ravines were even more prominent in the relief. By the present day, some have been filled in.

In the distant past, the ravines and hillsides provided natural protection for the city — it is no coincidence that the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin was built on an elevated site bounded by large ravines. Later, however, when the Kremlin had lost its defensive role, the ravines began to cause considerable inconvenience to the city's residents. Descents had to be constructed and bridges thrown across them. The first such bridge was built in the early seventeenth century across the Pochaina Ravine (on this site now stands an earthen causeway — the Lykova Dam, erected in the first half of the nineteenth century). There are now more than a dozen old and new descents within the city limits.

The directions of the ravines largely determined the radial-ring layout of the old part of the city (the present-day Nizhegorodsky District). Its streets, fanning out from the Kremlin, ran along the broad ridges dividing the ravines. The present-day streets of Sverdlov and Dzerzhinsky extend between the Pochaina and Zvezdinka ravines. The filled-in Zvezdinka Ravine is now the site of a boulevard. Along the other side of the Pochaina Ravine ran Krasnoflotskaya Street, while Minin Street and Ulyanova Street passed between the Otkos and the Kovalikhinsky Ravine, which in time became a street of the same name.

The upper part of the city was not only riddled with ravines; in earlier times it was also thickly wooded. Forests densely covered the steep riverbanks. Such wooded riverbank slopes were called Sluda. A stretch of it has survived to this day along the bank of the Oka above the Molitovsky Bridge, forming part of the Leninsky Komsomol Park. In the area of Myza, the wooded Oka bank was known in the past as the Nizhny Novgorod Switzerland for its scenic beauty. For the most part, however, all that remains of those forests in the upper town are small deciduous groves, such as Maryina Roshcha, which once began beyond the present-day macaroni factory and wrapped around the southern edge of the city.

In the city's layout, forested areas serve as buffer strips between built-up zones and as places of recreation. In the upper town, however, only the surviving woodland of Schelokovsky Khutor fulfills this purpose, and even it is being increasingly encroached upon by urban development.

The layout of the new districts of the upper town — Sovetsky and Prioksky — has a different structure from that of Nizhegorodsky District. Yet the influence of the terrain remains very strong there as well.

In Sovetsky District, several long longitudinal streets stand out — Nevzorovykh, Genkina, and others. They run across the gently sloping plateau parallel to the valley of the Starka River and the Kadochka Ravine. Perpendicular to these axial longitudinal streets runs a series of shorter cross streets. In the lower part of the Starka River valley, the microdistricts of Lapshikha have sprung up over the past decade on vacant lots, separated in pairs by a depression. Beyond them, the microdistrict of Kuznechikha is growing.

Prioksky District occupies the territory of a broad riverside ridge cut through by dales (Sakharnyy Dol and others). It has a settlement-and-microdistrict layout (Myza — the historic core of the district, Novy Posyolok, the microdistricts of Scherbinki, and others) with a connecting thoroughfare — Gagarin Avenue — running along the Oka.

A characteristic feature of the riverbank sections is the occurrence of landslides. These are connected with the fact that the upper town is composed of loose rock (marls) interlayered with impermeable (slippery) clays. The abundance of groundwater combined with the steep gradient of the riverbank slopes (up to 40–45°) causes individual layers of soil to shift.

Landslides, which had occurred repeatedly throughout the city's long history, became especially frequent in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the areas of the Volga escarpment and Sluda, where a railway line (to Arzamas) was laid along the Oka bank. During its construction, soil was excavated from the hillsides, and when the Volga escarpment was being developed, ravines were filled in without adequate drainage work. In several places this led to increased water saturation in the soil layers making up the hillsides and to a loss of their stability. It became necessary to undertake large-scale construction of drainage adits, which now cut through the Volga and Oka hillsides at various levels, forming a branching catchment system. Over the past ten to fifteen years, extensive grading works have also been carried out on the Oka and Volga slopes, with the laying of paved pathways.

The numerous areas of fill soil where ravines once stood, and the risk of landslides in the upper part of the city, make it necessary to carry out additional geological surveys before constructing buildings and other structures, and to reinforce building foundations.

The low-lying part of the City of Gorky presents an entirely different character.

Its layout is different, and its problems are different. Zarechye occupies a low-lying, partly hummocked with sandy hills, waterlogged interfluve of the Volga and Oka — part of the vast Oka–Volga lowlands, formed of glaciofluvial and alluvial deposits. The territory of Zaochye rises only seven to nine metres above the level of the Volga and Oka (and only in places twelve to fourteen metres). The groundwater table here is shallow — only two to three metres below the surface — which accounts for the waterlogging of the area. As recently as twenty years ago, roughly one quarter of the city's low-lying territory was waterlogged. Built-up patches resembled islands amid boggy wastelands, such as the vast Shuvalovsky Bog stretching along the Gorky–Moscow railway line.

The use of the low-lying part of the city is hampered by its annual flooding during the spring floods of the Volga and Oka. These rivers are fed by snowmelt for almost two thirds of their flow, with the remainder coming from groundwater and, to a minor extent, from rainwater. In spring they raise their levels by an average of six to seven metres (in some years by about one and a half times more), and before the construction of the dam of the Gorky Hydroelectric Station (1956) the rise in water level reached thirteen metres. In major floods, up to fifteen per cent of the Zaochye territory was frequently inundated.

With the construction of the Cheboksary Hydroelectric Station, when the level of the Volga and Oka rises by three and a half to four metres, the problem of land use in the low-lying part of the city will become still more acute. The need for bank-protection structures and large-scale hydraulic fill operations naturally arises. At present, such hydraulic filling is already under way using powerful equipment — dredgers and trenching machines — and in addition canals are being laid, so that the bogs in Zarechye are gradually disappearing and in their place, on level ground, whole blocks of multi-storey buildings are rising. To drain the bogs in Zaochye, it is important to create a unified canal network making use of the ancient bed of the Oka and the small rivers that flow through the area.

The natural conditions of the low-lying part of the city have also left their mark on its planning structure. The alternation of built-up ridges and spurs — on which the old settlements (former villages) that found themselves within the boundaries of the large city are clustered — and flat areas with newer developments, the chaotic layout of some parts and the grid-linear planning of others: these are the most general features of this structure. Zaochye encompasses more than three dozen old and new settlements, which form the increasingly merging parts of the low-lying districts.

With the laying of Komsomolskoe Highway, which links in an arc the radial routes of Lenin Avenue, Moscow Highway, and Sormovskoe Highway, the radial-ring structure of the general plan of this trans-Oka part of the city has been defined in its main outlines.

Zaochye has also preserved extensive areas of woodland. These are the remnants of what were once dense forests, predominantly pine (such as the Striginsky Pine Forest), which covered the entire interfluve of the Volga and Oka. Today, admittedly, they have not everywhere survived, and they are preserved as green buffer strips between urban development areas — strips that are all the more important because for a large industrial city with a high concentration of heavy industry enterprises, such as Gorky, areas of woodland serve as a kind of filter purifying the air.

In total, forests — now converted into forest parks — occupy about one fifth of the city's territory (roughly the same as the area under residential development). This area can be further increased by using for afforestation the marginal lands that currently still account for one seventh of Gorky's area, with about two thirds of these lying within the built-up zone. This considerably complicates urban development problems while at the same time making it possible to realise original planning solutions and to give individual districts of new development a distinctive character.

As we can see, the City of Gorky possesses very remarkable natural features that give it a unique character — an impression further deepened by its rich history.

City districts: a 1971 overview

No matter which way you approach our city — by rail or by water — you will find yourself in the centre all the same, even though the railway and river stations are located in different parts of it. Gorky belongs to that category of cities which have historically developed several centres.

Each of these parts of the city, unique in its individuality, expresses the city's essential character: the part of the city contained within the boundaries of Nizhny Novgorod — Nizhegorodsky District — embodies the city's historical role and serves as its cultural centre; Sormovo serves as the main centre of Volga shipbuilding; Sotsgorod serves as the centre of automobile manufacturing; Kanavino provides the city's transport links as the "gateway to the Volga Region." The City of Gorky is so multifaceted and many-sided that it truly gives the impression of being a confluence of several different cities. And it would be no exaggeration to say that many residents of some districts go years without ever visiting others.

The city's districts, in keeping with its two principal natural parts, are grouped into the upper-bank and the low-lying. Each of these two parts, or sides, of Gorky has certain characteristic features in common.

The upper-bank side stretches across the gently sloping, ravine-cut upland interfluve of the Oka and the Volga.

Nizhegorodsky District is above all a concentration of regional and city organisations, educational institutions, research institutes, and cultural and educational establishments. The passenger section of the river port is also located here. As the oldest part of the city, this district stands out for its historic and architectural monuments and for places associated with the names of celebrated fellow countrymen. Nizhegorodsky District contains seven of the city's ten higher education institutions: the polytechnic and the Institute of Water Transport Engineers, the civil engineering, medical, and pedagogical institutes (one specialising in foreign languages), and the conservatory.

The district's industrial significance is determined by its enterprises in the light and food industries, as well as in metalworking.

Nizhegorodsky District is the most picturesque part of the city. The Historic Center of Gorky — the Kremlin — is a reminder of the important role the city played in the distant past of the country. Adjacent to the Kremlin is Minin and Pozharsky Square (where the Upper Posad once stood). At its centre is a garden with a monument to Kuzma Minin. Here too, overlooking the Volga, stands a monument to V. P. Chkalov.

Six streets fan out from Minin and Pozharsky Square, among them the main thoroughfare of the upper-bank side — Sverdlov Street, which passes through Maxim Gorky Square, where a monument to the Stormy Petrel of the Revolution rises high above a spacious garden.

From the Kremlin, Figner Street leads to another of the city's squares — Freedom Square. There, opposite the opera theatre, stands a distinctive monument, reminiscent of a barricade, to the "Heroes and Martyrs of the Revolution of 1905."

The main section of Maxim Gorky Street stretches from Freedom Square to Maxim Gorky Square; it is currently being redeveloped into a wide ceremonial thoroughfare, where new buildings for a drama theatre and a young spectators' theatre are to be constructed.

The most beautiful spot on the upper-bank side — and indeed in the entire city, and perhaps along the whole Volga — is the Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, the Otkos, which begins at the St. George's Tower of the Kremlin. From the Otkos there opens a magnificent view of the Volga and the confluence with the Oka — the Strelka, with the cranes of the freight port soaring skyward — the trans-Volga meadows with lakes glinting among them, and the blue-hazed distances with a fringe of forest on the horizon...

Below the Otkos runs the concrete-clad Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, which, beginning from the Kremlin, gives way to the trading quarter of old Nizhny Novgorod (the Lower Posad). Here, in tightly packed stone buildings, shops, various trading depots, and warehouses are housed. This part of the city also has industrial enterprises (the Ulyanov Plant — almost as old as the Sormovo Plant — several garment factories, the Krasny Obuvshchik footwear factory, and others).

The lower part of the upper-bank side of the City of Gorky (its main street being Mayakovsky Street) is the passenger port district, with the river station and its berths. One of the monumental buildings houses the administration of the Volga United River Shipping Company.

Gorky can rightly be called the Volga capital, a role it has played since time immemorial. Once, great burlak markets flourished here, drawing thousands upon thousands of the destitute from several governorates. With the development of steam navigation in the second half of the nineteenth century, up to a dozen steamship companies established themselves in Nizhny Novgorod, and it became the starting point for all the shipping routes of the Volga basin. The burlaks were replaced by sailors, helmsmen, pilots, and captains, many of whom hailed from the Nizhny Novgorod land.

Mayakovsky Street leads to the Oka Bridge, whose arc of almost a kilometre spans the river, linking the upper-bank and low-lying sides of the city — a connection established more than a quarter of a century ago. Before the bridge was built (1933), a wooden pontoon (pontoon-raft) bridge was laid across the river each summer.

The always lively lower part of the city, where the "breath" of the great river is felt at every step, has a special kind of appeal. And it is hard to imagine that this was once the location of the famous Millioshka, which A. M. Gorky depicted in his play "The Lower Depths."

A defining feature of the external appearance of Nizhegorodsky District as a whole — as the old part of the city — is the density and compactness of its development. Almost all new construction takes place by demolishing old buildings. The district has acquired a new skyline: looking at the upper-bank side from the Strelka, where once a mass of old grey hovels and "dachas" of the so-called Eastern Bazaar stood — where merchants arriving for the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka used to stay — multi-storey buildings (ranging from five to fourteen storeys) now rise. And along the escarpment stretches the handsome Verkhne-Okskaya Embankment, with bridges thrown across the descents.

Sovetsky District is a new district in the upper part of the city, one that has grown especially rapidly over the past decade. As an industrial district it is distinguished by its food and light industries: it is home to a pasta factory, a dairy combine, a sparkling-wine plant, a hosiery-and-knitwear production association, and other enterprises.

Sovetsky District is also a cultural hub: new university buildings, the Higher Party School, and several technical colleges are located here.

Above Sluda, from which the new Molitovsky Bridge now spans the Oka, a complex of sports facilities is concentrated: the Palace of Sport, a swimming pool, and others.

The main artery linking Sovetsky District is Beketov Street, which branches off Gagarin Avenue (formerly the Arzamas Highway).

In recent years the district has expanded considerably to the east. Here, construction of the Lapshikha microdistricts is nearing completion.

Prioksky District is also a new district. It is home to the V. I. Lenin Television Plant and other enterprises. Its nucleus is the former dacha settlement of Myza, to which Gagarin Avenue leads along the Oka. On one side of the avenue there is continuous built-up development; on the other, a parkland zone extends. From here, the high bank offers a sweeping panorama of the industrial Trans-Oka area. The woodland of Schelokovsky Khutor is a popular recreation and sports destination — not only within the district but across the city as a whole. On the southern edge of Prioksky District, the buildings of an agricultural institute have risen, and the Scherbinki microdistricts — one of the city's principal new residential areas — continue to grow.

The Zarechna (trans-Oka) side of Gorky is its principal industrial and transport core, with new and old plants alike defining the city's industrial character.

A distinctive feature of the external appearance of the city's Zarechna side is the partly preserved "island" pattern of its built-up areas and their heterogeneity — an alternation of developed and undeveloped plots, districts of new multi-storey construction and old low-rise building — a consequence both of natural conditions and of the fact that former suburban settlements were incorporated into it (more than a dozen former villages: Kostarikha, Vysokovo, Karpovka, Strigino, and others).

Kanavinsky District, adjoining the Strelka, is the city's industrial, transport, and commercial district. It is home to the railway junction with Moscow Railway Station and the freight wharves of Gorky River Port.

Kanavino (known before the revolution as Kunavino) grew from a small suburban sloboda (settlement) to which the fair was transferred from Makarevo in 1817. For six weeks of the year, in the height of summer, Kunavino teemed with commercial life; then the doors and windows of the forty-eight stone buildings of the Gostiny Dvor and the other trading rows were boarded up tight, and the Kunavinskaya sloboda — populated by small craftsmen and tradespeople — sank back into the drowsy quiet of petty-bourgeois existence.

Up to two or three hundred thousand people from every corner of Russia and from near and distant lands (as far away as America) would converge on the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka — which had earned the title of "all-Russia's trading place" — bringing with them much of what those lands had to offer. In the late nineteenth century, when an All-Russian Trade, Industry, and Arts Exhibition was staged in the Kanavino area (on the site of what is now the 1st of May Park), the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka reached its zenith: its trade turnover amounted to around 300 million rubles.

In the Soviet era, industrial development of Kanavino began, and a number of enterprises grew up, some of them on the sites of older semi-artisan establishments. These include the M. Vorobyev Plant (producing mill and elevator equipment), the Sverdlov Plant (peat-harvesting machinery), Krasny Yakor ("Red Anchor," producing chains and anchors), a metallurgical plant (the country's principal supplier of saw blades), Vtorchermet (secondary ferrous metals), a flour mill, an oil-and-fat combine, and others.

In terms of its transport role, Kanavino gives Gorky first place among all Volga cities. The intersection here of waterway and railway routes has made the city a major transhipment point. Here, at the confluence of the Volga and the Oka — which together fork around the Central Region of the country like a pair of dividers — lies the nearest outlet from Moscow and its surroundings onto the main stretch of the Volga route.

That is why the second railway to be built in Russia — the Moscow–Nizhny Novgorod line (1862) — was brought to these "gateway" points from the Centre to the Volga Region.

The greater part of the freight traffic passing through Gorky falls to the railways, along their six routes: three trunk lines to Moscow, Kirov, and Penza, and three local lines — to Pavlovo, Zavolzhye (to the Gorky Hydroelectric Station), and Kstovo.

As a result of the reconstruction of the Gorky railway junction — augmented by new tracks — and the construction of a railway bridge across the Oka, the junction's capacity increased significantly, giving the trans-river part of the city and the extensive territories of Zavolzhye direct access to the right bank and to the southern districts of the country.

A further bridge has now been thrown across the Volga alongside the existing single-track bridge. The construction of this two-level bridge not only increased the capacity of the Gorky railway junction still further, but also, for the first time, established a highway link between the city of Gorky and the trans-Volga districts of the region.

The main flow of waterborne freight is handled at the mechanized wharves of the Gorky Port (at the Strelka and at other locations). With the commissioning of the Volga–Baltic system, the port's role has grown still further.

The external appearance of Kanavino has many distinctive features combining old and new. The district's main artery — Sovetskaya Street — runs from the Strelka for a considerable distance as an embankment of the Oka, along an artificial embankment bank that protects the shore from flooding during spring high water.

In its middle section, Sovetskaya Street widens to form a spacious square — the city's main square, named after V. I. Lenin, on which a monument to the Leader stands. It was built on the site of the former trading rows of the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka. Sovetskaya Street leads out to Revolution Square — a crossroads of routes leading to different parts of the city. This is the city's busiest square, the location of Moscow Railway Station. Beyond it begins Moscow Highway, running parallel to the railway line.

From Kanavino, one road leads past Moskovsky District to Sormovo, and another leads through Leninsky District to the Avtozavod.

Moskovsky District runs along the highway of the same name, on its northern side. Having separated from the sprawling Sormovo, it is one of the city's principal industrial districts, with a number of large plants, including the S. Ordzhonikidze Aviation Plant, Orgsinтез, and others.

The district is growing rapidly. Moscow Highway, Gastello Street, and others are the arteries of new construction. The streets of the Kalinina settlement, lined with multi-storey buildings, are richly planted with greenery. Strazh Revolyutsii Street and others have become true tree-lined avenues.

Sormovsky District, whose entire history is bound up essentially with the development of the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant, has grown from the small suburban village that Sormovo was a hundred years ago into a major industrial center.

In addition to the Krasnoye Sormovo Plant, the district has other enterprises as well, including in particular the oil-refining plant named after the 26 Baku Commissars and Neftegaz.

Sormovo — encompassing a number of old and new settlements (Komsomolsky, Koposovo, and others) — in its outward appearance, despite its long history (as a settlement it dates back to the sixteenth century), is in many respects an entirely new district, one that came into being only in the Soviet years. Not a trace remains of the workers' sloboda that used to wallow in mud and soot, the old Sormovo of those "little grey houses" on the Sormovo High Road, from which, at the call of the roaring factory hooter, "gloomy men who had not had time to refresh their muscles with sleep would come running out into the street like startled cockroaches" (M. Gorky, Mother). Today the "Sormovo High Road" has been transformed into a broad boulevard — Kominterna Street — lined with handsome multi-storey buildings. It is at the same time a historic street of the city of Gorky: in 1905, Sormovo workers fought here on the barricades.

Until recently, the Sormovo Highway from Kanavino to the center of Sormovo stretched through wasteland. Now it is lined with multi-storey buildings along its entire length. On what was literally a bog, Yubileynyy Boulevard has appeared, fronted by a row of nine-storey buildings. On the Komsomolsky settlement, Korablestroyiteley Avenue is growing.

Leninsky District occupies mainly the territory along the Oka. It is a new industrial district, although its historical nucleus is the old settlement of Molitovka, where even before the revolution a linen-weaving factory was established (now the Krasny Oktyabr linen combine, producing tarpaulin and sacking).

The district has up to a dozen industrial enterprises of various types (in this respect it resembles Kanavinsky District), among which the milling-machine plant and Dvigatel Revolyutsii ("Engine of the Revolution," producing diesels and gas-engine compressors) stand out in particular.

A distinctive industrial character is imparted to the district by plants that are suppliers to the auto plant: Krasnaya Etna — the country's leading supplier of automotive fasteners (bolts and rivets) — along with gearbox plants, large-stamping plants, Novaya Sosna (which produces bodywork for trucks), and a specialized-vehicle plant (vans, trailer-shops). Also located here are the Krasny Kozhevnik leather-and-footwear combine and the enormous Volga brewery, built in the postwar years.

The industry of Leninsky District is one expression of the city of Gorky's diverse internal production linkages. Together with Kanavinsky District, it also plays an important role in the city's internal and external connections. Here is the Molitovsky freight section of the river port; all transport flows between Avtozavodsky and the other districts pass through the district. Along Lenin Avenue — the axial artery not only of the district but arguably of the entire city — vehicles move in an unbroken stream. It is here that the city's need for a metro is felt most acutely. After all, around one and a half million people use public transport every day, with half of them carried by buses.

Leninsky District is undergoing extensive construction, particularly along Lenin Avenue — formerly Avtozavodskoe Highway.

Avtozavodsky District is an entirely new industrial district of the city, which emerged in 1930 together with the automobile plant. It has since grown so large that it can be compared to a number of major cities, such as Vladimir or Oryol.

Avtozavodsky District has much in common with the Sormovo District, although the two arose at different times: both are the city's largest industrial districts, are related in their production profiles (transport engineering), and their principal enterprises — the automobile and shipbuilding plants — are equally significant.

The construction of the automobile giant — one of the largest factories in the world — in Gorky specifically was determined by a number of factors. It was linked to the exceptional advantages of the city's transport location within the country's main industrial region, to the proximity of an energy base — the Balakhna power station — and to the availability of the necessary workforce, which was of great importance during the initial period of socialist industrialization.

Spreading its numerous buildings across a vast territory, the automobile plant has production ties with hundreds of enterprises throughout the country, many of which serve as its suppliers.

About a dozen such supplier plants are concentrated in the cities of Gorky Region, supplying engines (Zavolzhye), automotive glass (Bor), body hardware (Pavlovo), automotive electrical instruments (Lyskovo), leather and leather-substitute components (Bogorodsk), and other products.

The automobile plant is not the district's only enterprise. Also operating here are factories producing sanitary engineering prefabricates, woodworking, and others, as well as the Nizhegorodets furniture factory.

In outward appearance, Avtozavodsky District differs substantially from the others. While in Sormovo one can still see, as A. N. Tolstoy wrote, "workers' snug little private houses, with their own plots and kitchen gardens" alongside large multi-storey buildings, at Avtozavod there is "a different system; there a city has been built for the workers, consisting of enormous architecturally designed complexes, magnificent buildings with every modern comfort that any capital city would envy."

The district began to be built up on open land. A new avenue — Yuzhny — has recently appeared, serving as one of its main thoroughfares.

In terms of layout, Avtozavodsky District stands out from any other district of the city by its grid-pattern development, with a characteristically spacious arrangement of buildings surrounded by small gardens and green areas. Where the development is denser in places, broad landscaped inner-courtyard spaces are typical (as in the Busygin Quarter, for example), while along the outer sides of the blocks run wide lawns. Overall, in many places the district resembles a vast garden with large buildings arranged within it in neat rows.

The compositional center of Avtozavodsky District is the square in front of the Palace of Culture, onto which the boulevard of Oktyabrsky Avenue opens. At the center of the square stands the enormous building of the Palace of Culture (containing more than 500 rooms), with a large park nearby. Such a center is indeed fitting for Sotsgorod — as the central part of Avtozavod is known — a new and growing city.

Links

Sources

  1. Kommersant (Volga Region) — How Nizhny Novgorod was renamed (archive)
  2. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — The City of Gorky was renamed Nizhny Novgorod on October 22, 1990 (archive)
  3. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — Our city was a closed city for a long time: the special status was lifted 30 years ago (archive)
  4. exile.sakharov-center.ru — Sakharov's exile in Gorky — A chronicle of Andrei Sakharov's Gorky exile: dates, address, conditions (archive)
  5. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — 90 years ago, an automobile plant went into operation in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  6. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — 11 interesting facts about Gorky Square that you didn't know (archive)
  7. Vremya N — Gorky residents during the Great Patriotic War (based on materials from the Archives Committee of Nizhny Novgorod Region) (archive)
  8. demoscope.ru — Demoscope Weekly — All-Union Population Census of 1989: population figures for cities of the RSFSR (archive)
  9. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — The Nizhny Novgorod Metro marks its anniversary on November 20 (archive)
  10. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — Sakharov's Gorky: new facts revealed for the academician's anniversary (archive)
  11. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — Injuries on the Gorky Railway down by 12 percent (August 6, 2026)
  12. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Gorkovskaya metro station opened in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)