Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog (Nizhny Novgorod Prison Castle, Ostrog) — a branch of the Nizhny Novgorod State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve.

The only prison museum in Russia.

The Essence of the Phenomenon

The first Nizhny Novgorod Governorate prison.

The main transit route to Siberia passed through Nizhny Novgorod. For this reason, the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog was used from the very beginning of its history not only to hold inmates "kept on active cases" but also to accommodate prisoners in transit.[1] In the second half of the 1820s, between 150 and 250 such prisoners passed through the city every week.

The prison complex continued to serve its direct purpose until October 1914, when the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate prison was relocated to new buildings erected on Arzamasское Highway.

In 1981, a decision was made to transfer the former prison block of the ostrog to the Gorky State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve for use as an exhibition space.

Layout

The prison block of the ostrog is a two-story building with four round towers at the corners. In the central section of the block there is a built-in church with a small bell tower. The first and second floors of the left and right wings contain communal cells, while the towers hold solitary confinement cells. In the basement, directly beneath the church, are the punishment cells. The prison yard once held a large number of outbuildings — a bathhouse, barracks, guardhouses, a smithy, a hospital, and a stable — none of which have survived to the present day. In the outer courtyard, wooden barracks were built for political prisoners and prisoners in transit.[1]

Historical Background

According to the drawings of the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog held in the collections of the Gorky Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve, they were "imperially approved" on 8 May 1820. This is also stated in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire (Collection I, Vol. 37, 1830), where it is noted that a prison building in Kharkov was being constructed according to the same plan. A comparison of archival drawings reveals the complete identity of the prison castles in Nizhny Novgorod, Kharkov, and Astrakhan (the last of which was built in 1821–1824). Under the rules in force at the time, designs for any new state building had to be approved against standard model projects.

This was the case with the prisons mentioned above. In designing them, the standard project for a prison castle for a governorate city, drawn up by A. D. Zakharov, was taken as the basis. As in the model project of 1803, all the structures of the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog (and correspondingly those of the Astrakhan and Kharkov prisons) are rendered in monumental forms and are reminiscent of fortifications.

The overall layout is also similar, with the prison block situated in the middle of a square prison yard enclosed by a stone wall.[1] At the same time, unlike Zakharov's design, this block has four round towers at the corners, while the enclosing wall, conversely, has none. The entrance to the prison grounds, combined with the administrative block, is also arranged differently. Such departures from the standard designs were entirely permissible, as those designs were of a recommendatory rather than mandatory nature.

Construction of the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog began in the spring of 1820 and was largely completed three years later. The two-story prison block fully met the legal requirements for housing inmates "according to the nature of their crime."[1] It contained separate cells for men, women, and juveniles, as well as a prison hospital. The central section of the block was occupied by a church. Beneath it, in the basement, were chambers for secret prisoners — dungeons.[1] Even official inspectors who visited the prison noted that in these chambers "the air, owing to the damp, is extremely oppressive and harmful to health." In addition to the main staircase, there were four more staircases located in the towers.

These allowed access from any part of the block, bypassing the main entrance, to special enclosed yards designated for inmates' exercise. All of this was designed to prevent contact between different groups of prisoners.[1] The administrative block, which was combined with the gateway to the prison yard, contained guardrooms (kordegardy), reception rooms for newly admitted prisoners, and the prison warden's quarters.[1] The main service buildings (a bathhouse with a laundry, a stable, and an ice cellar) were situated directly against the perimeter wall, at two corners of which, on the inner side, stood stone sentry boxes. All the stone structures of the prison were plastered and whitewashed.

Conditions of the Inmates

Archival documents of the period paint a grim picture of the treatment of transit prisoners. Upon their arrival, the "resident" inmates were crammed into a few cells.[1]

"The remaining quarters are occupied by transit prisoners who, after an exhausting journey, still in their rain-soaked and ice-covered clothing, are locked into several rooms, practically on top of one another, and in this state spend entire days and nights, not even being let out at night for their needs due to an insufficient guard; not only is there nowhere to rest, but there is not even room enough for everyone to find a place on the bunks. This happens every week for three days, during which a party arrives, spends the day, and departs."

Reconstructions

In 1853–1855, the prison church was enlarged to a design by architect A. Turmyshev. An additional volume with an altar apse was added to the block. The church was crowned with a gilded dome and cross. A bell tower appeared above the main entrance to the block. In 1857, cast-iron columns were installed inside the church, replacing the original stone piers. Taken as a whole, its decoration stood in stark contrast to the grim surroundings of the prison itself. This "beautification" of the church was carried out at the expense of Nizhny Novgorod merchants.

The prison administration, well aware of the value of ideologically influencing inmates through sermons "on love and humility," readily accommodated such "benefactors." Yet for the unsubdued — the "especially dangerous criminals" — the secret cells beneath the church rooms remained in use as before. In addition, a special solitary-confinement cell was added to them. During the 1840s and 1850s, the administrative block was repeatedly redesigned, with partial changes made to its façade. The layout of the prison yard itself also changed.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the special exercise yards for prisoners and the corner sentry boxes at the perimeter wall had been abolished.[1] Despite the construction of a dedicated transit prison (etapnyy dom, a transit house) in Nizhny Novgorod in 1852, some transit prisoners continued to be housed in the cells of the Nizhny Novgorod Prison Castle. These cells were almost invariably overcrowded. The prison population shifted slightly in February 1858, when the women's section in the ostrog was abolished and its inmates were transferred to the house of arrest on Novo-Bazarnaya Square.[2] By the end of the nineteenth century, the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod Prison Castle was expanded.

In 1885, a new "transit yard" was established alongside the old prison yard. Two wooden barracks were built on it, necessitated by the closure of the transit prison in Nizhny Novgorod. The barracks were designed to hold 75 persons each, but, by the prison warden's own admission, "when the flow of transit prisoners is heavy, numbers sometimes swell to more than 300, and the prisoners then lie on the floor. Maintaining cleanliness under such crowding is extremely difficult..." It was in precisely these conditions that F. E. Dzerzhinsky spent several days in one of the barracks during the summer of 1898, while being conveyed into exile in Vyatka.

As the revolutionary movement grew, so too did the number of persons convicted of "political crimes." If in 1879 the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog officially held 6 political prisoners, by 1902 the cells of the stone block were already insufficient for them. Accordingly, one of the transit barracks was converted into solitary cells for political prisoners.

Gorky in the Ostrog

A solitary cell was occupied during his second arrest in 1901 by A.M.[3] Gorky. At other times, several prisoners were held together in the same rooms. Utility spaces in the building were also used as cells. Solitary cells had cement floors, while communal cells had wooden ones. Bunks were often absent, forcing inmates to sleep directly on the floor on straw mattresses.

The grey cell walls were covered with various inscriptions, among them the "prison alphabet" scratched in and used by prisoners to communicate by knocking. The doors were fitted with special peepholes through which guards could observe the inmates.[4] The windows were barred with thick iron grilles.

Particularly hated by the inmates were the "umbrellas" — wooden panels fixed to the outside of the cell windows, covering them by just over half.[4] They had first been installed back in 1853 under Governor M.A. Urusov. The liberal-minded F.V. Annenkov, who succeeded him, ordered the "umbrellas" removed. However, by the 1870s they had reappeared on the windows. For the slightest breach of prison regulations, inmates were sent to punishment cells.[5]

Punishment Cells

An eloquent description of them, written by the prison warden, has been preserved: "...All punishment cells are heated, but have no ventilation, nor is it hardly possible to install any; they are ventilated by the simple method of opening the doors when not [4]occupied; the punishment cells have no bunks, and inmates lie on the stone floor; there are no individual water jugs or buckets — instead, a bowl of water and a zinc-plated iron slop pail are placed in each cell." The arrangement of the punishment cells failed to meet even the standards prescribed by the Main Prison Administration.

End of Use

Technical innovations of the time were also employed to strengthen security: electric lighting, a bell alarm system, and a telephone. By the early twentieth century, the stone structures of the First Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Prison, as the ostrog was then known, had fallen into a very dilapidated state.

In November 1909, an authoritative commission consisting of several architects and engineers concluded that "even with significant expenditure, the building (the prison block — A.D.) will not meet the minimum requirements[3] imposed on buildings of such a specialized purpose." It was therefore decided to construct a new prison outside the city on the Arzamas Highway, and the plot of land on Ostrozhnaya Square was sold to the city. All the prison structures were regarded by the city authorities merely as material for demolition. The prison was transferred to new buildings on the Arzamas Highway in the autumn of 1914, as reported on 29 October by the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate Gazette. Owing to the world war that had begun, the old ostrog was not demolished in time: in November of that same year, prisoners of war were housed in it.

Soviet Era

After the October Revolution, in the 1920s, the ostrog was taken over by the workshops of the Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division.

In 1929, all the ostrog's buildings were transferred to the pharmaceutical administration. In connection with this, the main building was adapted for use as warehouse space. The ostrog's grounds were replanned and certain structures demolished, including the barracks.

The historical and architectural significance of the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog was not recognized in time. In the 1950s–1960s it was hemmed in on three sides by residential buildings. The architectural loss is felt most keenly on Varvarskaya Street, whose vista is now closed off by a featureless ten-story apartment block.

In 1981 a decision was made to convert the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog into a museum. Gorky Special Scientific Restoration Production Workshop developed a restoration project for it (lead architect V.A. Shirokov). The exterior of the prison block and the interiors of the communal cells, solitary-confinement cells, and punishment cells are to be restored to their early-twentieth-century appearance. An exhibition on the history of the revolutionary movement in the Nizhny Novgorod region will also be housed there. Restoration and reconstruction work is currently under way at the ostrog. However, part of its buildings, including the administrative block, is still occupied by the pharmaceutical management authority.

Museum

At various times the Ostrog held as prisoners well-known public and political figures, members of the intelligentsia, and participants in the Russian revolutionary movement of the 19th–20th centuries: the writers Korolenko and A.M. Gorky, Lenin's comrades in political struggle — Lenin's associates Dzerzhinsky, Sverdlov, N.A. Semashko, as well as prominent Nizhny Novgorod residents: P.A. Zalomov, P. Lvov, and many others.

Currently open for viewing are: a solitary-confinement cell, a communal cell, the prison church, and the punishment cell (group visits and pre-booked tours only). By visiting the prison castle, Nizhny Novgorod residents and guests of our city will learn new facts about the biographies of well-known figures of the past.

Location

The Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog is situated in the city center, two stops from the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin and Minin Square — the city's central square. The historical and architectural museum-preserve is located nearby. Adjacent to the ostrog are the Opera Theatre and the Theatre for Young Audiences.

Contact Information

Phone: (831) 261-30-18

Address: 603006, Nizhny Novgorod Region, Nizhny Novgorod, Freedom Square, 2.

Getting there: From Moscow Railway Station, take buses 38, 39, 61, or minibus taxi No. 34.

Opening hours: Mon–Fri 9:00–18:00. Sat and Sun — closed. Admission by pre-booked guided tour only.

See also

Sources

  1. opentextnn.ru — Davydov A.I. From the History of the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog (the First Prison Castle) — OPEN TEXT — Open Text, Davydov A.I. (archive)
  2. nn.aif.ru — The Nizhny Novgorod Prison. Where Gorky and Sverdlov Served Their Sentences (archive)
  3. V gorode N — The Tourist Prison of Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  4. GIPERNN — What Does the Nizhny Novgorod Ostrog Conceal? (archive)
  5. auipik.ru — The Dusty Tale of the Prison Fortress