The Chatygin Mansion is a two-story white-stone building from the second half of the 17th century on Pochainskaya Street, the oldest surviving monument of civil architecture in Nizhny Novgorod. It is widely known as "Peter the Great's Little House" thanks to the tradition that Tsar Peter I stayed here in May 1695 during his first visit to the city.[1]
Peter I in Nizhny Novgorod
In mid-May 1695, the young Tsar Peter I arrived in Nizhny Novgorod for the first time, on his way to the Azov campaign. Together with the sovereign, soldiers with artillery arrived on wooden strugi (river barges), while the main army went on foot. Bad weather detained the tsar for a whole week: the cannons were transferred from the Kolomna strugi to nine pauzoks (broad river barges) suited to navigation on the Volga, since the spring water stood high and transporting heavy cargo on small vessels was considered risky. In addition, the city's provisions were replenished.[1]
Despite the well-documented history of this stay, there is no documentary evidence of exactly which house the tsar lived in. According to a persistent tradition, he stayed in the stone mansion of the Nizhny Novgorod merchant Efim Chatygin.[1] Peter I visited Nizhny Novgorod a second time in the spring of 1722, before the Persian campaign, and this time stayed with the merchant Yakov Pushnikov.[1]
History of the Building
The exact date of construction of the mansion is unknown; it was presumably built in the 1680s. The building is made of large-format brick and plastered with white lime; originally, a wooden gallery adjoined it on the north side, housing the staircase between floors. In the 17th century, stone construction cost about 15 times more than wooden, so no more than fifty such civil structures have survived in Russia.[1]
In the early 18th century the mansion was owned by the Dokukin merchants, after which the owners changed repeatedly. In the 1840s a wine warehouse was located here; a mid-19th-century guidebook reported that the house belonged to a certain Mr. Polts, and from 1865 to his widow, who rented out the premises as a beer warehouse. About twenty years later, the new owner, a Nizhny Novgorod meshchanka (townswoman) named Rakhil Shprits, opened a flophouse for vagrants in the building. This circumstance outraged the well-known Nizhny Novgorod public figure and writer Aleksandr Serafimovich Gatsisky, who began campaigning to have the building bought out.[1]
The first known image of the mansion dates to 1838, when it was sketched by the painter brothers Nikanor Grigoryevich and Grigory Grigoryevich Chernetsov.[1]
Current Condition
The building is located on Pochainskaya Street and is one of the landmarks of the city's historic center; in particular, it is mentioned among the attractions of the Pochaina Ravine. The hotel "U domika Petra" ("At Peter's Little House") operates next to the monument.[2]
Sources
- putidorogi-nn.ru — Peter I's Little House in Nizhny Novgorod: history, photos, description, address (archive)
- u-domika-petra.ru — "U domika Petra" Hotel, Nizhny Novgorod, online hotel booking 2026 (archive)