Kanavino — the riverside part of Nizhny Novgorod on the left bank of the Oka, near the Strelka. It grew from the Kunavinskaya sloboda (a settlement of taxable residents), was a fair suburb for a hundred years, an independent settlement and town for thirty years, and since 1928 has formed the Kanavinsky District — the city's commercial and transport gateway.[1][2]
Kunavinskaya Sloboda
The sloboda of Kunavinskaya, with its taxable inhabitants, is first mentioned in a Nizhny Novgorod sotennaya gramota (hundred-register charter) from the early 17th century; the cadaster of 1621–1622 records thirty-two households there. The sloboda belonged to the city, while the neighboring Grivka, founded in 1599, belonged to a monastery; by the late 17th century Kanavino had absorbed it.[1][2]
The name is explained by the verb kunat' — to dip or immerse: the low left bank was regularly flooded by the Oka. A census book for Nizhny Novgorod also mentions a "yard of the widow Kunava Tarasova" — from this personal name, too, the sloboda's name is derived.[1][2]
| Year | Households |
|---|---|
| 1621 | 32 |
| 1678 | 142 (including the annexed Grivka) |
| 1816 | 400 |
The Yarmarka and the First Bridge
The turning point came in 1817, when the Yarmarka was relocated from Makarevo to the outskirts of Kunavino. Between 1818 and 1822, an ensemble of Yarmarka buildings rose on the sandbanks near the Strelka, designed by the engineer Betancourt, Augustin de; for several decades the sloboda became the service settlement of the all-Russian trade fair and was granted its own administration.[1][2]
In 1833, a pontoon bridge was opened — the Kunavinsky, also known as the Oksky — until then the sloboda had been cut off from the Upper Town. In 1845, Moscow Highway was laid out, the future Sovetskaya Street.[2]
The Railway Road and the Exhibition
In 1862, the Moscow–Nizhny Novgorod Railway reached Kanavino, and the settlement's importance as a transport hub grew sharply: a railway station, a depot, warehouses, and workshops were established there.[3]
In 1896, the 16th All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition — the only one in the series to bear the title "Great" — was held on the Kanavino side of the river. Its pavilions stood on the site of the present-day Park of May 1st. The ornate metal warehouses designed by Vladimir Shukhov had been assembled in Moscow back in 1882 and transported here especially for the exhibition; one hundred and twenty-five years later, a concert hall was opened in one of them and an exhibition space in another.[4]
From City to District
In 1925, Kanavino was granted the status of an independent city, and in 1928 it was incorporated into Nizhny Novgorod as a district. In 1935, the district was renamed Zheleznodorozhny ("Railway"), and only in 1966 was its historical name — Kanavinsky — restored.[1]
Old Kanavino
Old Kanavino is the name given to the part of the district between the Moscow Railway Station and the Oka — where pre-revolutionary buildings have survived. At 16 Sovetskaya Street stands an Art Nouveau mansion built in 1907 by the merchant Genrikh Dyurshmidt, now occupied by a library. At 6 Priokskaya Street stands a red-brick school building from 1902, designed by Pavel Malinovsky and funded by the merchant Yakov Bashkirov. The building at 27 Kommunisticheskaya Street housed the Kanavino primary school, where Alyosha Peshkov was a pupil.[2]
The wooden house at 4 Vokzalnaya Street belonged to the Kashirin family — the writer's relatives; by 2020 it had fallen into disrepair and its residents had moved out.[2]
The Church of the Transfiguration on what is now Kommunisticheskaya Street was built around 1829–1835. The cemetery attached to it was closed in 1925 and leveled, and a stadium was laid out in its place.[2]
The house is directly connected both to Gorky himself and to his relatives. Unfortunately, a different property — at 44 Alyoshi Peshkova Street — has been listed for protection as a monument, on the grounds that Gorky supposedly spent some of his time there. I don't know why such a mix-up occurred.[2]
Kanavino Today
The district remains the city's transport and commercial hub: a railway station, a bus terminal, the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka, the Kanavinsky Bridge and the Metro Bridge, a circus, and the Vera Theatre. In terms of industry, the largest operation remaining is the oil-and-fat processing plant.[2][3]
In 2018, a stadium — Nizhny Novgorod — seating more than forty-three thousand spectators opened on the Strelka: the site had been chosen in February 2012, following a visit by a FIFA commission, as a recognizable symbol of the city. The stadium became one of the key venues of the World Cup and remained the home ground of the local club.[5]
See also
Sources
- book-hall.ru — Kunavinskaya Sloboda / Centralized Library System of Kanavinsky District (archive)
- GIPERNN — Old Kanavino: From a Merchant Sloboda to the Present Day (archive)
- gttp.ru — Kanavino: The District's Role as a Transport Hub Following the Opening of the Railway in 1862 (archive)
- GIPERNN — Warehouses, Shukhov's Triumph, and an Imperial Visit: What Was the All-Russian Exhibition of 1896 in Nizhny Novgorod Like? (archive)
- Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — How the World Cup Legacy Became the City's Calling Card: Why (archive)