Krasnodontsev Street

Krasnodontsev Street (formerly Pionerskaya Street) is a street in the Avtozavodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod, in Sotsgorod; it begins at Molodezhny Avenue and crosses Kirov Avenue ^[1]. It is named in memory of the Krasnodon youths — members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard," which operated in 1942–1943 in occupied Krasnodon ^[1][7]. It is lined by the buildings of Sotsgorod's eighth block, built in the workshop of the Vesnin brothers and protected by the state as a monument of federal significance ^[2][4]; also here are School No. 130 with its "Young Guard" museum ^[5], the Avtozavod Sports Center — the former House of Physical Culture with a swimming pool dating from 1968 ^[10][11] — and the "Pobeda" (Victory) public garden, with a GAZ-M-20 car on a pedestal ^[13].

Where it runs

The street begins at Molodezhny Avenue and heads north through Sotsgorod, crossing Kirov Avenue. It was previously called Pionerskaya Street, and it received its present name after the Great Patriotic War, when the Krasnodon underground became widely known ^[1].

The street is laid out "in cross-section": on one side stretches a row of buildings in the old Stalinist architectural style, on the other, multistory apartment buildings ^[1]. It can be read as the whole construction biography of the neighborhood: buildings No. 1 and 3 belong to the 1935–1937 block ^[2][4], then come the postwar blocks, and building No. 17 is already a nine-story prefabricated panel building from 1983 ^[20]. Nearby lie Ilicha Avenue, Oktyabrya Avenue, and Avtozavodskiy Park, which the concave façade of the famous radial building faces ^[2].

The street brings together housing, healthcare, shops, sports, and monuments: "This street has everything: medical facilities, sports facilities, monuments, and commercial buildings," wrote local historians of the Avtozavodsky library system ^[1].

Who it is named after

The Krasnodontsy are the members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard," which operated in Krasnodon in 1942–1943 ^[1]. Krasnodon grew out of the Cossack khutor of Sorokin: in the late 18th century rich deposits of coal were found here, by the 1930s the settlement had become a major industrial center of the Donbas, and in 1938 it received town status and its present name ^[7].

The city was occupied on July 20, 1942. The scattered youth groups united on September 30, 1942; the headquarters included Ivan Turkenich (commander), Ivan Zemnukhov (chief of staff), commissar Viktor Tretyakevich, Sergey Tyulenin, Vasily Levashov, Georgy Arutyunyants, and later Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, and Oleg Koshevoy ^[7][8]. The youngest participant, Radiy Yurkin, was fourteen years old ^[7]. In all, the Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground had seventy-one members — forty-seven young men and twenty-four young women, and fifty-five of them never reached the age of nineteen ^[8].

The underground members wrote and printed leaflets — about thirty different titles with a total print run of almost five thousand copies, from which townspeople learned the Sovinformburo war bulletins; by early December their cache held 15 submachine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15,000 cartridges, and 65 kilograms of explosives ^[8]. On the night of December 6, 1942, the Young Guard members set fire to the labor exchange building, where the lists of people slated for deportation to forced labor in Germany were kept: about two and a half thousand young men and women were saved from deportation ^[7][8].

On January 1, 1943, Yevgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich, and Ivan Zemnukhov were arrested; the headquarters ordered everyone to leave the city immediately, but only twelve people carried out the order, and mass arrests followed ^[8]. All those arrested were tortured — this was stated during the investigation by Otto Shen, head of the Krasnodon gendarmerie post ^[7]. After the city was liberated on February 14, 1943, 71 bodies were recovered from the 53-meter-deep shaft of Mine No. 5 ^[7]. The Young Guard headquarters members who died were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union ^[8].

The commissar's fate became a story of its own. To break Viktor Tretyakevich, the investigators spread a rumor among the arrested and around the town that he was the one who had given everyone away; the real informer was Gennady Pocheptsov, who confessed later ^[8]. The stigma lasted almost seventeen years: Tretyakevich's name was not on the mass grave, Aleksandr Fadeyev was forbidden to name him in the novel "The Young Guard," and a composite traitor, Yevgeny Stakhovich, appeared in the book instead ^[8][9]. By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 13, 1960, Tretyakevich was rehabilitated and posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Class, but neither the rank of commissar nor the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was restored to him at that time ^[8]. He became a Hero of the Russian Federation only on September 22, 2022, posthumously, "for active participation in the creation and activities of the underground Komsomol organization 'Young Guard'" ^[9].

• July 20, 1942 — Krasnodon is occupied by German troops ^[7];
• September 30, 1942 — the youth groups unite into the "Young Guard" ^[7][8];
• the night of November 7, 1942 — eight red flags are hung on buildings in Krasnodon and neighboring settlements ^[7];
• the night of December 6, 1942 — the labor exchange is set on fire ^[7];
• January 1, 1943 — arrests of the leading triumvirate ^[8];
• January 15, 16, and 31, 1943 — executions at the shaft of Mine No. 5 ^[7][8];
• February 9, 1943 — Oleg Koshevoy, Lyubov Shevtsova, Dmitry Ogurtsov, Semyon Ostapenko, and Vasily Subbotin are executed in the Gremuchy Forest near Rovenki ^[7];
• February 14, 1943 — Krasnodon is liberated ^[7].

combating enemy propaganda, countering the Germans in all their undertakings, armed struggle

Block Eight: Buildings 1 and 3

The start of the street is taken up by the eighth, "radius" block of Sotsgorod. The entire complex was designed in the Moscow studio of the academicians, the Vesnin brothers; the authors of the project were N. Krasilnikov and P. Polyudov, and the block was built in 1935–1937 ^[2]. The block got its nickname from the radius building, whose concave side faces south, toward Avtozavodsky Park: round columns and semicircular balconies are arranged there in a checkerboard pattern, so that the play of light on the facade changes throughout the day ^[2][3].

The building was commissioned in 1937. The housing in it was of different kinds — both separate apartments and communal ones, while the two upper floors were occupied by a factory dormitory for engineering and technical staff; the building had elevators, and each one had its own operator ^[2][3]. During the war, anti-aircraft installations were placed on the radius building, as the highest point, to cover the auto plant from air raids; the heavy iron mounts were removed from the roof only in 1998 ^[3].

State protection extends to the entire ensemble. By a resolution of the regional government of July 12, 2022, a unified protection zone was established for the federal-level cultural heritage site "Sotsgorodok Complex and the 'Radius' Building"; the federal monuments include the buildings at 1 (lettered sections A, A1) and 3 (section A) Krasnodontsev Street, 33 Ilyich Avenue, 2 and 4 Vatutin Street, and 32 Molodyozhny Avenue ^[4].

Building No. 1 also serves as a public building. Since October 1, 2014, the Avtozavodsky branch of the multifunctional center for state and municipal services has been open here — one of the two largest in the city, with sixty service windows; during the renovation, the original interior, stucco work, and chandeliers were preserved ^[24]. On the ground floor of the building, since the 1990s, a private rehabilitation center run by S. Yu. Myshlyaev has been operating, dealing with disorders of the nervous system, psyche, and speech ^[1]; today it is called "Be Born Anew" and operates at the same address ^[26]. In 2007, a memorial plaque to the auto plant director N. I. Strokin was installed on Building No. 1 ^[6].

The radius building cannot be considered apart from the two five-story buildings located next to its ends along Vatutin and Krasnodontsev Streets. Together they form a single architectural whole.

School No. 130 and the "Young Guard" Museum

In 1962, Eight-Year School No. 130 opened on Krasnodontsev Street. Its first director was Leonid Andreyevich Dyachenko — a veteran of the Great Patriotic War and a history teacher who, according to his colleagues, did not like to talk about the war; the school's birthday is celebrated on the first Saturday of November ^[5].

The school adopted the street's name as its own theme. In 1965, the pioneer detachment began research on the Young Guard members, squads competed for the right to bear their names, and what they collected grew first into a heroes' corner, then into the Young Guard museum, opened in 1970. The mother of Lyubov Shevtsova and staff of the Krasnodon museum came for the opening; in 1974, the best pioneers were rewarded with a trip to Krasnodon ^[5].

In 2006, a memorial plaque dedicated to the Young Guard heroes appeared on the school building at 1a Krasnodontsev Street ^[6].

The Palace of Physical Culture That Became a Sports Center

On February 10, 1968, a Palace of Physical Culture with a swimming pool opened on the street — a gift from the Gorky Automobile Plant to the district. Before that, the Avtozavod swimmers' path began at a water station that appeared on the bank of the Oka every summer, while an indoor pool where one could train in winter too was only a dream ^[10]. For many years it was the only indoor pool in the district ^[1].

By 2013, the Palace of Physical Culture was receiving more than 1,100 people a day: kindergarten pupils and schoolchildren during the day, adults in the morning and evening. Chlorine had stopped being used in the water treatment here back in the late 1990s, and visiting athletes noted that the water on Krasnodontsev was the "lightest" in the city. In forty-five years it trained thirty Masters of Sport of Russia, medalists of European and world championships, and the swimming world champion Dmitry Talepov came out of it. The volleyball hall hosted factory spartakiads, and in the early 2010s Nizhny Novgorod's Sparta played its home games there ^[10].

In 2022, the building was closed for major renovation under the New Social Vector program, launched in 2021: it was decided not to settle for cosmetic work but to turn the pool into a sports and wellness center ^[12]. On October 8, 2025, the Avtozavod Sports Center opened on the site of the Palace of Physical Culture. The plant allocated 480 million rubles to the renovation, and the city administration provided about 30 million more for landscaping the adjacent area. In the three-story building of 3,500 square meters, the main six-lane, 25-meter pool remained and a pool for infant swimming was added; the gym was equipped for mini-football, volleyball, streetball, and handball, stands were installed, and a dedicated gas boiler house was built. Capacity is 700 people a day, and the historic mosaic on the facade was preserved by professional artists ^[11].

I learned to swim here myself, and today I even showed my colleagues the lane where I was rescued with the help of special sports equipment. Its modern counterpart is still there

Pobeda Square and the Car on a Pedestal

On November 17, 2000, the birthday of the Automobile Plant, a square with the proud name "Pobeda" ("Victory") was opened opposite buildings No. 5 and 7, and in it, a GAZ-M-20 car mounted on a pedestal ^[13]. The opening coincided with the relaunch, after renovation, of the neighboring store of the "Narodny" trading house: its director, Vasily Yevgenyevich Pushkin, financed the construction, investing about 500,000 rubles. The car, by his account, was bought in terrible condition, repaired, and only then lifted onto the pedestal; it was decided to name the square after it ^[14]. The head of the district administration, V. P. Zakharov, presented Pushkin with a letter of gratitude from the president of OJSC GAZ, Pugin, and the honor of cutting the red ribbon went to a plant veteran, the test driver S. A. Volkhonsky, who had won the Moscow–Minsk motor rally in a Pobeda ^[13].

The choice of car for the monument was no accident: the Gorky Automobile Plant produced the Pobeda from 1946 to 1958, with 241,497 vehicles of all modifications rolling off the line. It was the first Soviet car with a unibody and the world's first mass-produced car with a fenderless ("pontoon") body shape ^[1][13].

The name is tied to a well-known story in Avtozavod: at first the car was to be called "Rodina" ("Motherland"), and when Joseph Stalin learned of this, he supposedly asked ironically how much the motherland would sell for, whereupon the name was promptly changed to "Pobeda" ^[1]. There is no documentary confirmation of this conversation; it rests on retellings.

For its time it was the most reliable car. I drove the entire difficult route in it without a single breakdown.

Sports neighbors: "Pioner" and "Hand Games"

Right after the intersection with Kirov Avenue, on the right, lies the Pioner stadium ^[1]. On August 1, 1999, it had a second birth: within a single calendar year, an arena with stands on three sides, multicolored seats, an electronic scoreboard, and an emerald-green field was built on the site of a wasteland and ruins; the stadium owed its revival to the Automobile Plant ^[1][15]. It was built for training the football team Torpedo-Viktoria, with stands designed to seat eight thousand ^[16].

The celebration did not last long. At the turn of 2009 and 2010, the regional government was preparing to announce a competition for a reconstruction project: the work was estimated at more than 2 billion rubles, the capacity was to be raised to twelve thousand spectators, and the stadium was to receive certification from the Professional Football League ^[15]. In 2011, the city authorities announced the transfer of Pioneer to the municipal balance sheet, together with the Rodina movie theater and the Ruchnye Igry sports complex ^[17]. Neither move saved the stadium: it was demolished, and in 2020 the site was handed over for free use to Olympic Reserve Sports School No. 8 for football, for a future physical culture and recreation complex. But by March 2025 only the goalposts and part of the fence remained of the stadium, the field had become overgrown with weeds and bushes, and a spontaneous parking lot had formed at the entrance ^[16].

The street's second sports facility is the Ruchnye Igry ("Handball Games") complex. The handball stadium used to stand on Molodyozhny Avenue, but it was decided to build the Sports Palace there, and the complex was rebuilt from scratch on Krasnodontsev Street ^[1]. Work went on from 1990 and, as Vladimir Soldatenkov, who then ran the plant's housing and utilities department, recalled, it was carried out by the efforts of all of GAZ's work collectives; the construction is dated 1991 ^[17][18]. In the early 2010s the complex was transferred to the city and became the base of Children's and Youth Sports School No. 19: by 2015 about seven hundred children were training in its sections — volleyball, rhythmic gymnastics, kickboxing, cycling, and gorodki. Its coaches called the Ruchnye Igry gorodki pavilion one of the best in Russia and the only one in the region; Dmitry Kiyaev, a graduate of the complex, won the world championship in 2014 as part of the Russian national team ^[18].

At the automobile plant, people have always loved a healthy lifestyle. It was, you might say, a shock Komsomol construction project. All of GAZ's work collectives worked on the site.

Building No. 17: the 2020 explosion and the long resettlement

On the morning of July 11, 2020, household gas exploded in an apartment on the sixth floor of nine-story Building No. 17. Firefighters brought the blaze under control within an hour; Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS) personnel rescued 11 people and evacuated 28; five were injured, two of whom were hospitalized. The blast damaged the partition walls between apartments and the floor slab between the sixth and seventh floors ^[19]. The residents of all 108 apartments in the building, which dates from 1983 — almost four hundred people — had to leave; the cause was given as a gas leak from a poor-quality hose ^[20].

On October 23, 2020, an expert organization declared the building unsafe and recommended that it be dismantled entirely. The residents scattered to rented apartments: the city paid the owners of one-room apartments 10,400 rubles a month, of two-room apartments 13,500 rubles, and of the rest 19,500 rubles; ninety families applied for compensation ^[19]. For a year the building stood unattended, and in winter pipes burst in it and flooded the stairwells and apartments ^[20].

In the summer of 2021, emergency stabilization work began on the building — the contract, worth 15.9 million rubles, went to OOO "Proftekhstroy-NN" — and a site at 31 Geroya Vasilyeva Street was chosen for resettlement, with construction valued at 415.4 million rubles; the deadline for relocating residents was set for the end of 2023 ^[20]. The promise was kept: in November 2023 the city completed three buildings for people resettled from the dilapidated housing stock, and those affected by the explosion began moving into the new building at 31A Geroya Vasilyeva Street, constructed by OOO "Mostoproektstroy" — their apartments were designed to replicate the earlier layouts ^[21].

The nine-story building itself remained standing. In February 2025, the demolition of Building 17, Letter A was valued at 39,079.75 thousand rubles, and officials explained that it could not be brought down in the usual way — there is a store on one side and a residential building on the other, so it will be dismantled in stages ^[22]. In July 2026, the city's construction department reported that it was considering options for using the site, including a comprehensive area development project ^[23].

The last time we were in the building was May 20. We walked into the entrance and were horrified: the paint was cracked, and everything was flooded because of a burst drainpipe on the ninth floor.

The Street by Address

The street's development spans seven decades — from the prewar Sotsgorod to panel-built nine-story buildings ^[2][20].

Avtozavodskoye Ring

In the early 1960s the street was part of a popular evening stroll that the Avtozavod residents called the promenade: groups of friends gathered on Kirov Avenue and walked toward Krasnodontsev Street, picking up acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances along the way. The route was always described as running counterclockwise — Kirov, Krasnodontsev, Ilyich, October, and back to Kirov; the girls watched to see who was dressed fashionably, although everyone was wearing the same white canvas rubber-soled sneakers ^[25].

For some reason we always strolled counterclockwise — we would turn onto Krasnodontsev, then Ilyich, October, and back onto Kirov. We had our very own Avtozavodskoye Ring.

See also

• Sotsgorod
• Avtozavodsky District
• Molodezhnyy Avenue
• Ilicha Avenue
• Avtozavodskiy Park
• Palace of Culture of GAZ
• GAZ-M20 Pobeda
• Chelyuskintsev Street
• Poyushcheva Street
• Komsomolskaya Square

Sources

1. lib-avt.ru — Centralized Library System of Avtozavodsky District — a local-history essay on the street: its former name, the origin of its name, and its landmarks — Krasnodontsev Street (archive)
2. lib-avt.ru — "Den goroda" (reprint by the District Library System of Avtozavodsky District) — the history of Sotsgorod, the Eighth Quarter, and the Vesnin brothers' workshop — Our Sotsgorod (archive)
3. lib-avt.ru — "Nizhegorodsky Rabochy," 2012 (reprint by the Library System) — an essay on the Radial House, its buildings on Vatutin and Krasnodontsev Streets, and the anti-aircraft guns on the roof — The Radial House (archive)
4. GIPERNN — GiperNN, August 11, 2022 — the resolution on the unified protection zone and the list of federal monuments, including Krasnodontsev Street, Buildings 1 and 3 (archive)
5. lib-avt.ru — Library System of Avtozavodsky District, based on school materials — the opening of the school in 1962, search work, and the "Young Guard" museum — History of School No. 130 (archive)
6. lib-avt.ru — Library System of Avtozavodsky District — a list of the district's memorial and informational plaques with addresses and years of installation — Memorial and Informational Plaques (archive)
7. victorymuseum.ru — Victory Museum — an online exhibition on the "Young Guard": Krasnodon, the composition of the headquarters, and a chronicle of the underground and its destruction — The Young Guard (archive)
8. nkj.ru — "Nauka i zhizn," No. 1, 2003 — an examination of the facts about the Krasnodon underground, the story of the slander against Viktor Tretyakevich and his rehabilitation — "The Young Guard": Some Facts (archive)
9. Kommersant (Volga Region) — Kommersant, September 22, 2022 — the decree awarding Viktor Tretyakevich the title of Hero of Russia — Putin Posthumously Awards the Title of Hero of Russia to Young Guard Member Tretyakevich (archive)
10. lib-avt.ru — "Avtozavodets," February 9, 2013 (reprint by the Library System) — an essay for the 45th anniversary of the Sports Hall with a swimming pool — An Oasis of Health (archive)
11. web.archive.org — "Avtozavodets," October 8, 2025 — the opening of the Avtozavod Sports Center on the site of the Sports Hall — Avtozavod Sports Center Opens in Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
12. web.archive.org — "Avtozavodets," August 17, 2022 — on the major renovation of the Sports Hall under the "New Social Vector" program (archive)
13. lib-avt.ru — "Avtozavodets," November 21, 2000 (reprint by the Library System) — a report on the opening of the "Pobeda" public garden and the car monument — The "Pobeda" Public Garden and a New Store (archive)
14. lib-avt.ru — "Nizhegorodsky Rabochy," November 18, 2000 (reprint by the Library System) — on the opening of the "Pobeda" monument and who paid for it — We Now Have Car Parks (archive)
15. lib-avt.ru — Library System of Avtozavodsky District, based on materials from NTA Privolzhye — the second birth of the Pioneer Stadium on August 1, 1999, and plans for its reconstruction — Pioneer Stadium in Sotsgorod (archive)
16. V gorode N — a tour of the city's old stadiums, the current state of the Pioneer on Krasnodontsev Street — Ruins of Soviet Sport: What the Stadiums of Nizhny Novgorod Look Like and How They Live (archive)
17. lib-avt.ru — "Avtozavod Online," 2011 (reprint by the Library System) — on the transfer of the Pioneer and the "Ruchnye igry" complex to the city's balance sheet, and the construction dates of the facilities — From Hand to Hand (archive)
18. lib-avt.ru — "Avtozavodets," January 29, 2015 (reprint by the Library System) — the 25th anniversary of the "Ruchnye igry" complex, School No. 19, and the gorodki pavilion — A Quarter Century in Sport (archive)
19. Kommersant (Volga Region) — Kommersant, October 23, 2020 — the expert assessment of Building No. 17, details of the explosion, and the amounts of rental compensation — Building on Krasnodontsev Street Recommended for Demolition After Gas Explosion (archive)
20. GIPERNN — GiperNN, August 16, 2021 — a major feature on the life of the residents of the building that exploded, the emergency repair work, and the construction on Geroya Vasilyeva Street (archive)
21. domostroynn.ru — DOMOSTROYNN.RU, November 23, 2023 — the handover of buildings for resettled residents, including residents of the building on Krasnodontsev Street (archive)
22. domostroynn.ru — DOMOSTROYNN.RU, February 4, 2025 — the cost and method of dismantling Building No. 17, Letter A — The Exploded Building on Krasnodontsev Street in Nizhny Novgorod to Be Demolished for 39 Million Rubles (archive)
23. Vremya N — on plans to use the site under Building No. 17 for an integrated area development project (archive)
24. lib-avt.ru — "Avtozavodets," October 25, 2014 (reprint by the Library System) — an interview on the opening of a multifunctional center office at 1 Krasnodontsev Street — The Incredible Became Obvious (archive)
25. lib-avt.ru — Library System of Avtozavodsky District — recollections of district festivals and promenades of the early 1960s — A Promenade Through Yesterday (archive)
26. doctormyshlyaev.ru — "Rodis Zanovo" Rehabilitation Center — official website: the address at 1 Krasnodontsev Street and the center's areas of work — "Rodis Zanovo" Clinic Rehabilitation Center (archive)