Former names — the earlier names of Nizhny Novgorod itself, its slobodas, localities, streets, and squares: from the Erzyan Obran Osh and the chronicle "Novgrad" to Telyachya Street, Ostrozhnaya Square, and Sverdlovka. The first list of the city's streets was left by the cadastral book (pistsovaya kniga) of 1621–1629: it records twenty-four streets, half of whose names were of church origin [5]. After that, the names changed in waves — church and social-estate names were removed after 1917, and at the turn of the 1980s–1990s nine of them were restored [15][16]. Below is where these names came from, what they meant, and when they changed; a complete list of "former — current" pairs for all the city's streets is collected in the article Renamings of Streets and Squares in Nizhny Novgorod, and the dispute over the renamings themselves is covered in the article Renamings in Nizhny Novgorod.
Names of the city itself
Before the Vladimir druzhinas arrived, a fortified Erzyan settlement stood on the Dyatlov Hills — an outpost and customs station of the Mordvin land, by the early 12th century under the protectorate of Volga Bulgaria. It was called Obran Osh, that is, "Obran's town": "osh" means town in Erzyan, and Obran is the name of its owner, which is traced back to the name Abraham. In 1171 the town was taken and sacked by Mstislav, son of Andrey Bogolyubsky, and somewhat later it was plundered by Mordvin forces who came to take revenge [7]. Nikolay Khramtsovsky, the founder of Nizhny Novgorod local history studies, called this place Abramov Gorodok [7]; Sytin's "Military Encyclopedia" writes that Yuri Vsevolodovich founded a fortress on the Dyatlov Hills, "where there was the Mordvin town of Abramovo or Ibragimov" [14]. Other city names also preserve the memory of this layer: Meschera Lake is named after the Meschera tribe, and the word "Oka" itself is derived from the Finnic "joki" — river [7]. This layer is examined separately in the article Mordvin Toponymy of Nizhny Novgorod Region.
The Russian name of the city is first mentioned in the 14th-century Laurentian Chronicle — under the year 1221, in the entry on the founding of a fortress at the mouth of the Oka [12]. The city did not receive the epithet "Nizhny" (Lower) at its founding: in early sources it is simply Novgorod, and in the charters of the Patriarchate of Constantinople it still appeared that way at the end of the 14th century. The historian V. A. Kuchkin dated the appearance of the qualifier to the 1340s–1350s, when Novgorod on the Oka became the capital of a major principality and needed to be distinguished from Novgorod on the Volkhov, which at about the same time received the epithet Veliky (Great) [13].
The city was called "Nizhny" ("Lower") after the Nizovskaya Land (the "lower" country), and not after the flow of its rivers: in the title of the Russian tsars it was styled "Novgorod of the Nizovskaya Land" until 1917, and only from the mid-14th century was this shortened to "Novgorod Nizhny" and then to "Nizhny Novgorod" [12]. Both forms appear in old writing — "Novgrad" and, before the spelling reform of 1918, "Nizhniy-Novgorod" in its old orthography [14][20]. Both halves of the name were declined together, and in the oblique cases "Novgrad" turned into "Novugrad": the Suzdal saint John is named in an old hagiographic collection as bishop "of Nizhny Novugrad and Gorodets" [21].
On October 7, 1932, the presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR issued a decree renaming the city Gorky, in honor of the fortieth anniversary of the literary career of Maxim Gorky. Formally, the initiative came from below: at a ceremonial assembly in the Kanavino House of Culture, it was put forward by Ovsyannikov, a worker from Sormovo, and supported by Karnadsky, a port stevedore, and Barudin, an autoworker [9]. Some historians also explain the decision by bureaucratic need: in 1929 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decreed the merger of Nizhny Novgorod, Kanavino, and Sormovo, and since both posads (trading suburbs) already had the status of towns, the merger required a new name; the working variant "Greater Nizhny Novgorod" was not rushed out to the public [7]. The writer himself was not pleased with the new name.
The demand to restore the city's name was first voiced publicly in the late 1950s — it came from Kirill Maslov, secretary of the party committee of Gorky University, but writers in the capital spoke out against it, and the idea fizzled out [9]. On October 4, 1987, Gorkovskaya Pravda printed an open letter, "Readers Propose Restoring the City's Former Name"; it was signed by academicians B. A. Korolev and A. V. Gaponov-Grekhov, the writer V. A. Shamshurin, and the artist I. M. Ashkenazi [9]. The opponents' main argument was cost: the city executive committee put the price of the city council sessions at 50–60 million rubles, whereas the supporters' calculations came to no more than 500 thousand [8][9].
In March 1990, residents were polled together with the elections to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR — the majority voted "for"; on May 10, 1990, the city council made the decision, and on October 22, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR approved the renaming; at the same time Gorky Region became Nizhny Novgorod Region [9][10][12]. Nizhny lived as the city of Gorky for 58 years and 20 days [10]. The question was put up for public discussion by the chairman of the city council, Omari Sharadze, and the USSR Supreme Soviet deputy Boris Nemtsov carried the request of Gorky residents to Boris Yeltsin [8].
That same summer Grand Prince Gyurgi, son of Vsevolozh, founded a town at the mouth of the Oka and gave it the name Nov Grad
Today for the first time I wrote "Gorky" on an envelope instead of "N. Novgorod". It is very awkward and unpleasant
One Georgian took the city's historic name away. So another Georgian must restore historical justice
What the City Has Been Called
| Name | When it was used | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Obran Osh, Abramov (Ibragimov) Town | before the 13th century | Erzya "osh" means "town," and "Obran" is the name of the owner of the settlement in the Dyatlov Hills [7][14] |
| Novgrad, Novgorod | from 1221 | "New town" at the mouth of the Oka, as recorded in the Laurentian Chronicle [12][14] |
| Novgorod of the Nizovskaya Land | in the title of the Russian tsars until 1917 | after the Nizovskaya Land (the "Lowlands"), in which it was founded [12] |
| Novgorod Nizhny, Nizhny Novgorod | from the 1340s–1350s | a shortening of the earlier name; the added qualifier was needed to distinguish it from Novgorod on the Volkhov [12][13] |
| Nizhniy-Novgorod (pre-reform spelling) | until the 1918 spelling reform | the pre-reform spelling, with the letter yat and the hard sign (er) [20] |
| Gorky | October 7, 1932 – October 22, 1990 | after the literary pseudonym of Maxim Gorky, on the fortieth anniversary of his literary career [8][10] |
| Nizhny Novgorod | from October 22, 1990 | the historical name restored by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR [10][12] |
Where the Old Names Came From
The first list of Nizhny Novgorod's streets was not a decree or a plan but a tax document. Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich sent scribes to the city to find out how Nizhny had weathered the Time of Troubles and to assess the townspeople's ability to pay; the "Scribal Book of Nizhny Novgorod, 1621–1629" records twenty-four streets that already had that status. Half of the names there are of church origin; the rest come from the nicknames of the owners of the corner properties: there was, for example, Petushkov Street. When a household disappeared, the name of the street changed as well [5].
Alongside the street names lived the names of localities, which the townspeople gave themselves and which the scribes then made official: Podol, Podnove, Old Pechyory, the Egoryevskaya Side [5]. Putting up signs with street names became the practice in Russia under Catherine II, by a decree of 1768; it was also under her that the first general development plan for Nizhny was drawn up, and the empress gave the city itself a brief, memorable assessment [5].
There were few grounds for a name, and each is obvious at a glance. Streets named after churches include Bolshaya and Malaya Pokrovskaya, Alekseevskaya, Varvarskaya, Tikhonovskaya, Rozhdestvenskaya, and Aleksandro-Nevskaya [11]. Those named after residents' occupations include Pryadilnaya (Spinners'), Kanatnaya (Ropemakers'), Torgovaya (Trade), Kovalikha, Kuznechikha, and Bolshaya Yamskaya and Malaya Yamskaya, named for the Yamskaya sloboda (settlement), where the coachmen lived [11][6]. Those named for social estate include Dvoryanskaya (Nobility; now Oktyabrskaya) and Meshchanskaya (Townsfolk; now Bratyev Matusovykh) [11]. Those named for terrain and position include Osypnaya, from the word "osyp," meaning an embankment or rampart: the street ran along the earthen fortifications, and the remains of the rampart between Bolshaya Pecherskaya and Minin Street survive to this day [11][6].
Memorial names were given sparingly and only for merit. Mistrovskaya Street was named for General I. I. Mistrov, a participant in Suvorov's campaigns; Perepletchikovskaya for the city head and philanthropist F. P. Perepletchikov; Gotmanovskaya for the urban-planning engineer P. D. Gotman, who designed the Yarmarka and city streets; Kizevetterskaya for the first city architect, G. I. Kizevetter [11]. In the Kunavino Sloboda behind the Yarmarka appeared Aleksandrovskaya and Elizavetinskaya Streets, named for Alexander I, during whose reign the Makaryev Yarmarka moved to Nizhny in 1817, and for his wife; there too were Tsarskaya and Kryukovskaya, the latter after Governor A. S. Kryukov, who supervised the construction of the trading grounds [15].
Some streets bore several names at once, one for each section. The present-day Belinsky Street was called Napolnaya — it was on the outskirts and was the road to the fields — and was divided into three parts: Napolno-Monastyrskaya, from present-day Lyadov Square to Kulibina Park; then Napolno-Lesnaya (where the timber yards stood); and from Freedom Square, Napolno-Zamkovaya, also known as Napolno-Ostrozhnaya [11][6]. Zvezdinka Street was at first designated descriptively — "the street leading to the Kovalikha Ravine" — and only from the 1860s received its name from the ravines that radiated out like a star; a second version links the name to the Zvezdin noble family [11].
This city is splendid in its situation, but vile in its construction
Waves of Renaming
The first renamings came as early as 1918, timed to the anniversary of the revolution, and they came in lists. The city's central street, Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, was named after Yakov Sverdlov, a native of Nizhny: by some accounts this happened in 1918, by others a year later [4][15]. The neighboring Malaya Pokrovskaya, which housed the governorate Cheka, was given to its chairman, Yakov Vorobyov; here too the sources disagree — Stanislav Smirnov places the renaming in the same years of 1918–1919, while FederalPress gives 1924 [1][15].
After that the renamings proceeded as a chain reaction. In 1919, by decision of the Nizhny Novgorod executive committee, Rozhdestvenskaya Street became Oktyabrskaya, but the name did not stick; four years later, already during the NEP, it was renamed Kooperativnaya, and in 1940 it was named after Vladimir Mayakovsky, timed to the tenth anniversary of his death [1][15]. By a 1931 decision of the Nizhny Novgorod district soviet, in a single list — about thirty place names — the streets and lanes of nearly the whole historic core were renamed: Varvarskaya, Alekseevskaya, Tikhonovskaya, Bolshaya and Malaya Pecherskaya, and Lykova Damba vanished from the map [3][15].
In the 1930s squares changed names too: Vokzalnaya became Chelyuskintsev Square, and Sofronovskaya passed through the names Labor Square, October 25 Square, and Kooperativnaya before becoming Markin Square [1]. The renamings did not end with the first decades of Soviet power: by a single decision of the city soviet's executive committee on May 27, 1977, forty-two streets, lanes, and squares were renamed at once [15].
The logic of the new names was straightforward: the city was obliged to have Lenin streets and avenues and streets named after Party congresses. Of the central streets, only Bolshaya Pecherskaya kept its former name — it was named not after a church but after the siege yard of the Pechery Monastery, where peasants from the village of Vysokovo gathered in case of a siege [5]. Later renamings became memorial in character: in 1965 Pryadilnaya (Pryadilny Lane) was named after Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Maslyakov, who was killed during the crossing of the Dnieper [6][19].
Streets: Former and Current Names
Below are the city's central streets and their former names. Where publications give different years, both are listed: some of the renamings were carried out in batches, and the exact date for an individual street differs from one publication to another [1][11][15][16].
| Old name | Current name | When renamed |
|---|---|---|
| Bolshaya Nikolskaya | Bolshaya Pokrovskaya | 1824, after the bell tower of the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos [4] |
| Bolshaya Pokrovskaya | Sverdlov Street | 1918 or 1919 [4][15] |
| Sverdlov Street | Bolshaya Pokrovskaya | December 24, 1991, decision No. 1095; according to other sources the street bore Sverdlov's name until 1992 [4][15] |
| Malaya Pokrovskaya | Yakov Vorobyov Street | 1919 or 1924 [1][15] |
| Vorobyov Street | Malaya Pokrovskaya | December 24, 1991, decision No. 1095 [1][15] |
| Ilyinskaya | Krasnoflotskaya | in the Soviet period [1][2] |
| Krasnoflotskaya | Ilyinskaya | December 24, 1991, decision No. 1095 [15] |
| Rozhdestvenskaya | Oktyabrskaya, then Kooperativnaya, then Mayakovsky | 1919, 1923, and 1940 [1][15] |
| Mayakovsky Street | Rozhdestvenskaya | 1994; according to other sources, late 2001 [1][16] |
| Bolshaya Pecherskaya | Lyadov Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Lyadov Street | Bolshaya Pecherskaya | April 19, 1990, decision No. 284 — the first return of an old name [15] |
| Varvarskaya | Figner Street | 1931 [1][15] |
| Figner Street | Varvarskaya | December 24, 1991, decision No. 1095 [15] |
| Alekseevskaya | Dzerzhinsky Street | 1931 [15] |
| Dzerzhinsky Street | Alekseevskaya | December 24, 1991, decision No. 1095 [3][15] |
| Sergievskaya | Uritsky Street | after 1917 [3] |
| Uritsky Street | Sergievskaya | December 24, 1991, decision No. 1095 [3][15] |
| Tikhonovskaya | Ulyanov Street | 1931 [1][15] |
| Osypnaya and Malaya Pecherskaya | Piskunov Street | via the intermediate name "MOPR Street" [1][6][8] |
| Napolnaya (Napolno-Monastyrskaya, Napolno-Lesnaya, Napolno-Zamkovaya) | Belinsky Street | 1911 or 1912, for the centenary of the critic's birth [6][11] |
| Polevaya | Gorky Street | 1953, for the 85th anniversary of the writer's birth [1][2] |
| Telyachya | Gogol Street | 1909, for Gogol's centenary [6] |
| Pryadilnaya (Pryadilny Lane) | Maslyakov Street | 1965 [6][19] |
| Dvoryanskaya | Oktyabrskaya | after 1917 [11][16] |
| Meshchanskaya | Brothers Matusov Street | after 1917 [11] |
| Mistrovskaya | Academician Blokhina Street | in the Soviet period [1][11] |
| Pereplyotchikovskaya | Pushkin Street | in the Soviet period [1][11] |
| Gotmanovskaya | Kostin Street | in the Soviet period [1][11][16] |
| Kizevetterskaya | Frunze Street | in the Soviet period [11] |
| Kanatnaya | Korolenko Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Mironositskaya | Dobrolyubov Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Zhivonosnovskaya | Kozhevennaya | after 1917 [1] |
| Pokhvalinskaya | Zalomov Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Tsarskaya | Sovnarkomovskaya | after 1917 [1][16] |
| Martynovskaya | Semashko Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Zhukovskaya | Minin Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Zelenskaya | Pozharsky Street | after 1917; the name is connected with the Zelensky Descent [1] |
| Mininskaya | Nevzorov Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Voznesenskaya | Nizhegorodskaya Street | after 1917 [1][16] |
| Elizavetinskaya | Kommunisticheskaya | after 1917 [1][16] |
| Krutikovskaya | Krupskaya Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Pozharskaya | Street named after Genkina | after 1917 [1] |
| Predtechenskaya | Garshin Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Pirozhnikovskaya | Alyosha Peshkov Street | after 1917 [1] |
| Bolshaya (Balakhninskaya) | Kominterna Street | after 1917; the Bolshaya Sormovskaya road, along which the militia marched in 1612, formerly ran here [1][18] |
| Bolshaya Moskovskaya | Sovetskaya | after 1917 [1][16] |
| Aleksandro-Nevskaya | Strelka Street | after 1917; the name was given after the Novoyarmarochny Cathedral [1][2] |
| Sibirskaya | Samarkandskaya | the street was populated by Siberian merchants [1] |
| Arzamas Highway | Gagarin Avenue | in the Soviet period [6] |
| Bolshaya Soldatskaya | Volodarsky Street | after 1917 [16] |
| Aleksandrovskaya | Internatsionalnaya | after 1917 [16] |
| Spasskaya | Trudovaya | after 1917 [16] |
| Voskresenskaya | Shevchenko Street | after 1917 [16] |
| Sobornaya | Shcherbakov Street | after 1917 [16] |
| Arkhangelskaya | Vorovsky Street | after 1917 [16] |
| Oka Embankment | Marat Street | after 1917 [16] |
| Krestovozdvizhenskaya | Krasnoselskaya | after 1917 [2] |
Squares: Former Names and Current Ones
| Former names | Current name | When renamed |
|---|---|---|
| Verkhneposadskaya, Verkhnebazarnaya, Blagoveshchenskaya | Minin and Pozharsky Square | in 1917 merged with Seminarskaya into Sovetskaya; the current name dates from the installation of the monument to Kuzma Minin in November 1943 [1][11] |
| Monastyrskaya | Lyadov Square | after 1917; from 1938 to 1948 it bore the name of Romain Rolland [1][2] |
| Novaya, Arestantskaya, Novobazarnaya, May 1 (imeni 1 Maya) | Gorky Square | the current name dates from the 1930s; in everyday speech the square was also called Sennaya, Polevaya, and Srednaya — after the market that operated on Wednesdays [1][6] |
| Ostrozhnaya, Narodnaya, Proletarskaya | Freedom Square | Narodnaya from 1918, Proletarskaya from 1923, Svobody from 1937 [1] |
| Sofronovskaya, Truda, October 25 (25 Oktyabrya), Kooperativnaya | Markin Square | It was called Sofronovskaya from the 1830s until 1918; the current name dates from 1936–1937 [1] |
| Vokzalnaya, Chelyuskintsev | Revolution Square | Chelyuskintsev from 1934, Revolution Square in the postwar years; the former name "Vokzalnaya" went to the neighboring street [1][2] |
| Staraya Sennaya, Narimana Narimanova | Sennaya Square | It bore the name of Nariman Narimanov in the 1950s; the historical name was restored in the 1970s [1][6] |
| Dvortsovaya | Kiselyov Square | 2005, in honor of the head of the automobile plant Ivan Kiselyov [1] |
Slobodas, Selos, and Urochishches
The most sweeping change of names is not the renaming of a street but a city's absorption of a village. The settlement across the Oka is named in the Nizhny Novgorod cadastral book (sotnaya gramota): "And opposite the Nizhny Novgorod posad, across the Oka, there is the sloboda of Kunavinskaya, and in it live taxpaying people." In 1621 Kunavino had 32 households; next to it stood the sloboda of Grivka, founded in 1599 — it belonged to a monastery, while Kunavino belonged to the town, and the two long contended for precedence. In 1678 Grivka, which had grown to 142 households, merged with Kunavino and lost its name [17]. The shift from "Kunavino" to "Kanavino" occurred only by the middle of the 20th century; in 1925 Kanavino received town status, in 1928 it became part of Nizhny Novgorod, in 1935 the district was renamed Zheleznodorozhny (Railway) District, and only in 1966 was its former name restored [17].
Sormovo has a similar fate. In 16th-century documents, the settlement of Marino, which belonged to the Shumenev family, is recorded on its site; the nickname of one of the brothers, Terenty — "Soroma" — is believed to have given the present name. The neighboring village of Likharevo became Koposovo after its owner Kopos Khabarischikov, and the pochinok (new settlement) he established grew into Pochinki. The decision to open a shipbuilding enterprise in Sormovo was made in 1849, and a year later the first Sormovo steamship, the "Lastochka," slid down the slipway; in 1922 the plant became "Krasnoye Sormovo," and in 1928 Sormovo was incorporated into the city [18].
The names of urochishches are explained by terrain, trade, or owner. Grebeshok is a summit on the bank of the Oka, cut by ravines and resembling a rooster's comb in outline. Karavaikha is a loaf-shaped hill on the high bank of the Oka. Lapshikha is traced either to Finno-Ugric roots ("lap" — lowland, "sha" — small river) or to the surname of the landowner Lapshin. Myza got its name from the farm established here at the end of the 19th century by K. M. Rebinder, chairman of the Nizhny Novgorod criminal court, a native of the Baltic region. Scherbinki is a village on the Moscow and Arzamas trakts (highways), incorporated into the city limits in 1947; its name is explained by the pits and bumps on the road there. Burnakovka is named after the Mordvin name Burnak or after the Tatar murza Burnak, to whom Ivan the Terrible gave this land [11].
Schelokovsky Khutor was at first called Makhotinsky — after its founder, the Nizhny Novgorod police chief A. E. Makhotin, a veteran of the Patriotic War of 1812. In the 1870s it was bought by the grocer Schelokov, and the khutor remained in the local toponymy under the surname of this merchant and tea trader; the local historian D. N. Smirnov offers another explanation — after the surname of D. F. Schelok, a statistician of the uyezd zemstvo who headed a Tolstoyan colony [11]. Three legends are told about the settlement of Varya: the land was given to a landowner's daughter, Varya; the neighboring Varya and Darino are named after the daughters of Soroma; and three sisters, Darya, Varya, and Parasha, divided an inheritance, and the shortchanged Parasha threw herself into a river, which has been called by her name ever since [11].
Gruzinskaya Street takes its name from Gruzinsky Lane, which was named after the estate of Georgy Aleksandrovich Gruzinsky, a great-grandson of the Georgian king Vakhtang [11]. Mytny Market was formerly called the Mytny Dvor (Mytny Yard), from the word "myt", meaning tribute or tax: in its middle stood stone chambers where taxes were collected on imported goods, and the place where day laborers were hired was called the "mytnaya birzha" (the "myt exchange") [11]. Black Pond was first named in the land survey book of 1621 and was black for good reason: it received more than just rainwater running down from the surrounding hills; by the middle of the 19th century it was cleaned out and a linden alley was laid out around it, and after a storm sewer system was built in 1914 it grew shallow and was filled in [11].
The name Strelka is older than the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral: in the 17th century the center of the Strelitsky Stan of Nizhny Novgorod Uyezd was located on the cape at the confluence of the rivers, and the locality itself was called Strelitsa, after its shape resembling an arrow [2][11]. And here is another transfer of a name: the Orthodox cemetery, opened in 1916, was at first called the New one, sometimes the Red one, after its brick wall; the "Bugrovsky" cemetery, however, was the neighboring Old Believer one, tended by N. A. Bugrov, and gradually the name moved over to the Orthodox one. Its correct name is the Old City Cemetery [11].
Localities: the former name and the present one
| Old name | Current name | When it changed |
|---|---|---|
| Kunavinskaya Sloboda, Grivka | Kanavino, Kanavinsky District | Grivka merged with Kunavino in 1678; the spelling "Kanavino" became established by the mid-20th century [17] |
| Kunavinsky District | Zheleznodorozhny District | 1935 [17] |
| Zheleznodorozhny District | Kanavinsky District | 1966 [17] |
| Marino | Sormovo | since the 16th century; the name is linked to the nickname "Soroma" [18] |
| Likharevo | Koposovo | after its owner, Kopos Khabarishchikov [18] |
| Makhotinsky khutor | Schelokovsky Khutor | 1870s, after its purchase by the merchant Shchelokov [11] |
| Strelitsa | Strelka | the popular name of the spit, known since the 17th century [2][11] |
| Mytny Dvor | Mytny Market | from "myto" — a tax on imported goods [11] |
| New (Red) Cemetery | Old City Cemetery | opened in 1916; in everyday usage, the name of the neighboring Old Believer cemetery — Bugrovskoye — became established [11] |
Names That Survived in Speech
Some Soviet-era names have outlived their own time: there are still people who call Bolshaya Pokrovskaya "Sverdlovka" and Rozhdestvenskaya "Mayakovka" [2]. The colloquial "Pokrovka" is older than the Soviet nicknames: it took hold back in the 19th century, and when stone princely and general's mansions began to rise along the street, it was unofficially called "the noble street" — an epithet that was thoroughly forgotten in 1917 [4]. The street was called Sverdlovka after Yakov Sverdlov, whose father kept an engraving workshop at house no. 8; Yakov's older brother was Zinovy Sverdlov [4].
Some old words have outlived the things they named. Oshara", which gave its name to Osharskaya Street and Osharskaya Square, is defined by Vladimir Dal as "a petty thief, drunkard, vagrant, and ragamuffin; a swindler who fleeces drunks in taverns," and also as "a tavern on the outskirts, in the backwoods"; he states outright: "In Nizhny, a part of the city is called Oshara — it is a backwater and a den of swindlers." The tavern on what was then the outskirts, where the pockets of tipsy patrons were "oshariled" (rifled through), was torn down, but the name remained [11].
Zelensky Descent was originally Zeleyny — named after Zeleynaya Hill, on which stood the zeleyny dvor, a gunpowder factory and storehouses. When gunpowder stopped being called "zelye," the name slid into its present form [11]. Sennaya Square kept its name but lost its trade: the trade in hay and grain was first conducted by the Kremlin walls on Blagoveshchenskaya Square, in 1828 the market was moved out to the Kazan Gate, and the present Sennaya lies even farther out and no longer sold hay [11]. Finally, the Kremlin Koromyslova Tower was possibly originally called Karamyshevskaya — after the princes Kurbsky-Karamyshev, whose estate stood in the kremlin; the estate vanished, the name was distorted, and legends about a girl with a yoke (koromyslo) followed [5].
The Return of the Names
The return of names followed the city's own. After the regional scholarly and practical conference of June 1990, where historical names were proclaimed cultural monuments, in August 1991 the center of the work became the toponymy commission of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Russian Cultural Foundation. Its members included the historians I. A. Kiryanov and Yu. G. Galay, S. L. Agafonov, author of the Kremlin restoration project, the architect I. V. Petrov, and the artist I. M. Ashkenazi; meetings were held two or three times a month. After working through the archives, the commission sent Mayor Dmitry Bednyakov a list of streets, squares, and lanes whose names were to be restored — roughly fifty names by one count and about sixty by another [3][15].
There were two decisions. The first, No. 284 of April 19, 1990, came out before the August putsch and gave Lyadov Street back its name, Bolshaya Pecherskaya. The second and by far the largest, No. 1095, came out on December 24, 1991, in the days of the dissolution of the USSR: it restored the names Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, Malaya Pokrovskaya, Alekseevskaya, Sergievskaya, Varvarskaya, and Ilyinskaya to Sverdlov, Vorobyov, Dzerzhinsky, Uritsky, Figner, and Krasnoflotskaya Streets [15]. A little later the main street of the Lower Bazaar became Rozhdestvenskaya again — in 1994 according to some sources, at the end of 2001 according to others [1][16]. In all, nine names returned to the map: Bolshaya Pecherskaya, Lykova Dambа, Bolshaya and Malaya Pokrovskaya, Alekseevskaya, Varvarskaya, Ilyinskaya, Sergievskaya, and Rozhdestvenskaya [16].
There the movement stopped: subsequent appeals from the culture foundation went unanswered [3][15]. Soon afterward, Metropolitan Nikolai of Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas asked the mayor to restore the name Aleksandro-Nevskaya to Strelka Street and Moskovskaya to Sovetskaya Street: according to some publications this happened in 1995, according to others in 1996. There was no response [2][15][16].
What was not restored, and what is still disputed
The longest-running dispute concerns Lyadov Square. Its pre-revolutionary name was Monastyrskaya, after the Krestovozdvizhensky Convent, built in the late 18th century on what was then the outskirts; the square never officially bore the name "Krestovozdvizhenskaya" — that name went to the present-day Krasnoselskaya Street [2]. In 2012 a citizens' initiative group asked the head of the city to restore the square's historic name; the deputies supported the idea, but no agreement could be reached; in 2015 the proposal was repeated by Fyodor Seleznyov, chairman of the "Nizhny Novgorod Local Historian" society. At various times it was proposed to name the square Magistralnaya, Zaokskaya, Rossiyskoy Derzhavy ("Russian Power"), Srednyaya, Triumfalnaya, or after the Bugrov merchants [2].
A 2018 poll cooled the dispute: 54.4 percent of Nizhny Novgorod residents voted to change nothing, 7.8 percent voted for Krestovozdvizhenskaya, 6.4 for Monastyrskaya, and the rest did not care about the name [2].
The second long-running dispute is over Strelka Street. As early as the mid-1990s Metropolitan Nikolai proposed restoring the name Aleksandro-Nevskaya, and the foundation in his memory supported the initiative; the renaming was to be timed to the 800th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Nevsky. The street stretches about 600 meters and has about twenty buildings, and a renaming would affect eight residents [2].
Opponents are those who value the word "Strelka" itself: officially, this toponym survives only in the name of a street, and if it were removed, the city would be left with only the popular name for the area [2].
There is also a compromise path, under discussion since 2012: put up plaques with the old names on buildings without renaming the streets. In 2018, the toponymic commission of the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Writers' Union of Russia proposed to the mayor that dual names be introduced — Gorky Street and Polevaya Street, Minin Street and Zhukovskaya Street, Freedom Square and Ostrozhnaya Square. Such a practice already exists in Veliky Novgorod, Perm, and Yaroslavl, but nothing went beyond talk [2].
Of the "revolutionary" names, those that the city received from its Soviet-era development have not gone anywhere: Lenin Square in Kanavino, Lenin Avenue with Kirov and Ilyich Avenues branching off it in Avtozavodsky District, and Sovetskaya, Sovnarkomovskaya, and Karl Marx streets next to Strelka. No one intends to get rid of them [2]. A separate and much older part of the city's names — the estate-based and police divisions of old Nizhny — is described in the article An Old Description of the Parts of Nizhny Novgorod.
In Soviet times we wrecked all of this. Historically and philosophically, restoring the name Alexander Nevsky will be right
Sources
- FederalPress — an overview of how the names of Nizhny Novgorod's streets and squares have changed — From Sverdlovka to Pokrovka: how street names changed in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
- V gorode N — on the return of historical names to streets and squares — Streets with a history: how the names of old Nizhny are coming back (archive)
- V gorode N — on the work of the 1991 toponymic commission and the list of restored names — An old "new" name (archive)
- V gorode N — a guide to Bolshaya Pokrovskaya with the history of its names — Nizhny Novgorod classic: Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street (archive)
- nn.aif.ru — "AiF — Nizhny Novgorod," an interview with local historian Alexander Danilov about Nizhny Novgorod toponymy — History underfoot. How did the streets of Nizhny Novgorod get their names? (archive)
- NN.RU — a map of the old names of streets and squares in the city center — Telyachya, Arestantskaya, and Pryadilnaya streets. What Nizhny Novgorod looked like 100 years ago — where such names came from (archive)
- NN.RU — on the names of the city itself, from the Erzya settlement to the return of its historical name — From Obran Osh to Gorky: how the names of Nizhny Novgorod changed over 800 years (archive)
- Kommersant (Volga Region) — how the city was renamed Gorky and back again (archive)
- Kommersant (Volga Region) — accounts from participants in the 1990 renaming and the text of the city council's decision — One city, two names (archive)
- NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — on the return of the city's historical name on October 22, 1990 — The City of Gorky was renamed Nizhny Novgorod 20 years ago, on October 22, 1990 (archive)
- biblmr.r52.ru — Library of the Moskovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod — a local-history tour of the origins of city names (archive)
- nobl.ru — Government of Nizhny Novgorod Region — a chronicle of the region with the text of the Laurentian Chronicle on the founding of the city — Chronicle and history of Nizhny Novgorod Region (archive)
- archives.nobl.ru — Archives Committee of Nizhny Novgorod Region, a study by B. M. Pudalov on the origin of the city's name — B. M. Pudalov. Yuri Vsevolodovich and the Nizhny Novgorod land
- ru.wikisource.org — Sytin's "Military Encyclopedia" (1911–1915), the article "Novgorod Nizhny" — text on Wikisource — ВЭ/ВТ/Новгород Нижний (archive)
- smiroslav.livejournal.com — Stanislav Smirnov, deputy chairman of the toponymy commission at the Nizhny Novgorod branch of the Russian Cultural Foundation — a chronicle of renamings and decision numbers (archive)
- smiroslav.livejournal.com — Stanislav Smirnov — on the nine restored names and the toponymic commission's list — Streets of our city: regaining a name
- book-hall.ru — Centralized Library System of the Kanavinsky District — the history of Kunavinskaya Sloboda — Kunavinskaya Sloboda (archive)
- V gorode N — the history of Sormovo from the village of Maryino to a city district — Sormovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod: history and archival photos (archive)
- Otkrytyi Nizhny — after whom the city's streets are named — "Streets of Heroes": after whom the streets of Nizhny Novgorod are named
- ru.wikisource.org — Sytin's "Military Encyclopedia" in pre-reform orthography — the cross-reference article "Nizhny-Novgorod"
- ru.wikisource.org — Filaret (Gumilevsky), "Russian Saints Venerated by the Whole Church or Locally" — the life of Saint John of Suzdal, text on Wikisource