Pokrov-Maydan is a village in Vorotynsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Region. It is located 10 km from the district center on the Vorotynets - Sergach highway.
Founding of the Village
The village of Pokrovsky Maydan was founded in 1658. After the Vorotynsky family line died out, in 1700 Peter I granted the village, then part of Barminskaya Volost, to Count Fyodor Alekseevich Golovin. The land register of Afanasy Soymonov records: "... the village of Pokrovsky Maydan, together with other villages and hamlets, was sold by Count Fyodor Golovin in 1736 to State Councillor Akinfiy Demidov."
In drawing up the deed of purchase ("kupchaya krepost"), the officials Mikhail Kobylkin, Afanasy Soymonov, and Mikhail Korovin noted that this former palace estate had received village status in the year 7188 (1680 AD), and that this occurred 22 years after the founding of the hamlet then known as Stary Maydan.
Owners of the Village
Pokrov-Maydan was the ancestral estate of the renowned noble family the The Demidovs of Nizhny Novgorod. Here stands an almost fully preserved estate complex with a manor house, outbuildings, a church, a park, and ponds. It was built in the 1850s. From 1851 the village was owned by Pavel Vasilyevich Demidov, a lieutenant of a hussar regiment. After his death in 1855 the estate was divided between his brothers Arkady and Nikolai. Following the division, the brothers began building new estates: Arkady in Bykovka, and Nikolai in Pokrovsky Maydan. After Nikolai Vasilyevich's death, the estate passed to his son Konstantin.
The Pokrov-Maydan Estate
The estate complex includes the manor house, service and utility buildings, a riding arena, and stables for horses and livestock. The eclectic two-story manor house is the centerpiece, dominating the complex of single-story structures. The house is built of red brick. The corner pilasters echo those of the nearby Church of the Intercession. The buildings are vertically divided by decorative frieze bands: an inter-story band and a frieze beneath the cornice. The projecting risalits of the facades are topped with gabled attics featuring semicircular windows. The house once looked somewhat different: it was adorned with semicircular tops to the window openings and brick window surrounds, but these were lost after a major renovation when the building became a school. Changes were also made inside the building. Rooms that had once been interconnected were separated from one another to create a classroom system for the school.
The Manor Park
All the buildings of the estate complex are harmoniously connected to the natural surroundings, with elements of a once carefully organized landscape: remnants survive of ponds and a dam, lime-tree avenues, paths down to the river, and planted trees and shrubs.
This 2.5-hectare manor park is a botanical Natural Monument). It was laid out in the mid-19th century. On the stream running along the bottom of the ravine, dams were built forming a cascade of ponds — "sazhalki" — stretching down to where the stream flows into the Urga River.
Old-timers pass down their parents' memories: "The park had sand-strewn paths. On the hill by the river, next to a pine tree that still stands today, there was a gazebo. In the evenings the residents of the manor house would gather there and play 'music' (a gramophone)." Anna Ivanovna Vershinina (born 1905) recalls: "Avenues ran through the park; in front of the church and the present-day boiler house there was a stone fence. The paths were swept every Saturday." And Mikhail Alexandrovich Sinitsyn (born 1913) recounted that larches, spruces, and pines grew in the park, and that fruit trees grew in four rows along the fence.
At present the park is in a neglected state and needs to be cleared of debris and young growth that disrupts what was once a carefully planned park landscape.
The Church of the Intercession
In 1864, a new stone church was built on the site of the old wooden church dedicated to the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos. Influenced by the designs of Konstantin Ton, it was erected, like many churches in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, in the then-dominant Russo-Byzantine style. The church still stands at the center of the village, rising majestically above the other buildings. Frescoes have survived inside the church. It is very rare to see murals on the theme of the Orthodox Creed in churches, yet in the Church of the Intercession they adorn the interior space of the dome.
Beside the altar is a cemetery, but it has been destroyed — the gravestones have been carried off, and only a single grave cross remains.
At present the Church of the Intercession is being restored with funds from the village residents and sponsors. A gas boiler house has been installed. New blue domes have been fitted, as is customary for a church dedicated to the Mother of God.