Nikolai Alexandrovich Semashko (1874–1949) was a Soviet statesman, one of the organizers of the Soviet public health system, and an academician of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. He is connected to Nizhny Novgorod through a period of revolutionary activity: from 1904 to 1906 he lived and worked in the city.
The Nizhny Novgorod period
In 1904–1906 Semashko was in Nizhny Novgorod, where he belonged to a circle of local revolutionaries. There he became acquainted with Yakov Sverdlov and a number of other prominent figures of the future Soviet government — A. Rykov, M. Vladimirsky, and others.
Memory in Nizhny Novgorod
Two Nizhny Novgorod sites bear Semashko's name. Semashko Street (formerly Martynovskaya Street) runs from Freedom Square to the Upper Volga Embankment — it was renamed in his honor. The Nizhny Novgorod Regional Clinical Hospital, whose history dates back to 1825, also bears his name: in September 2025 the institution marked its 200th anniversary with the "City of Health" scientific-practical conference.