Kozhevennaya Street

Kozhevennaya Street is a street in the historic part of Nizhny Novgorod, in the Skoba. It has borne its present name since Soviet times; formerly it was called Verkhnyaya Zhivonosnovskaya (Verkhne-Zhivonosnovskaya) Street, after the Church of the Life-Giving Spring that once stood here.

History of the name and topography

Verkhnyaya Zhivonosnovskaya Street emerged from the historically commercial Nizhny Posad. According to an 18th-century description, between Verkhnyaya Zhivonosnovskaya Street and the embankment lay Nizhnyaya Zhivonosnovskaya Street with trading bathhouses that had existed since the early 14th century — a fact recorded in the Sotnaya Gramota (a cadastral land-register document). Over time Nizhnyaya Zhivonosnovskaya Street was lost, while the upper street received its present name, Kozhevennaya. The street runs between Nizhne-Volzhskaya Embankment and the lanes running parallel to it: Rybny Lane climbs from the embankment up to Verkhne-Zhivonosnovskaya Street (that is, to Kozhevennaya), dividing the built-up area of the Skoba district.

Notable buildings

House No. 11 on Kozhevennaya Street is associated with the name of Maxim Gorky: it housed the well-known "Stolby" ("Pillars") tearoom, set up by the writer for the city's poor. The building's own history goes back to January 1837, when Pereplyotchikov Fyodor Petrovich, together with his wife and brother, petitioned the Nizhny Novgorod Building Committee for permission to erect a three-storey house "over cellars" with two wings on Verkhnyaya Zhivonosnovskaya Street. The design was prepared by architect G. I. Kizevetter; the façades were submitted for approval on 10 March 1837.

At Kozhevennaya, 4, a three-storey building has survived that was built in 1907 for the Nazaryevsky Orphanage and a parish school attached to the Church of the Life-Giving Spring. The church itself, which gave the street its historical name, was destroyed in Soviet times.

Sources

Material used from articles (3)

Rybny Lane, Nizhny Posad, Church of the Life-Giving Spring on the Nizhny Posad)