Rodionov Street — one of the longest streets in the Upper Town of Nizhny Novgorod; only Gagarin Avenue is longer. It begins at Sennaya Square and leads to the Verkhniye Pechyory microdistrict. In city road-works documents, the street is described as the section from Bolshaya Pecherskaya Street to Brinsky Street; house numbers reach 203.[1] It is named after Mikhail Ivanovich Rodionov — First Secretary of the Gorky Regional Committee of the VKP(b) and chairman of the city defense committee.[2]
Former names
In the nineteenth century, what is now Rodionov Street was on the city's outskirts and was called the Bolshaya Kstovskaya Road, later Ogorodnaya Street; the surrounding land was known as the Pechersky Vyselki.[3]
At the street's beginning lay Sennaya Square, where the City of Gorky ended: beyond it stood the Kazan Outpost, from which the Kazan Trakt began — today's Kazanskoye Highway.
Mikhail Rodionov
Mikhail Ivanovich Rodionov was born on 25 October (7 November) 1907 in the village of Ratunino in the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate — now the Lyskovsky district of the Region — graduated from the Lyskovo Pedagogical Technical School, and joined the Party in 1929.[2][4] He was appointed chairman of the city defense committee on 24 October 1941, and led the regional committee from January 1940 to March 1946.[2]
After his time in Gorky, Rodionov worked in Moscow as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR. On 13 August 1949 he was arrested — according to accounts, in Georgy Malenkov's office — and on 1 October 1950 was shot in Leningrad in connection with the "Leningrad Affair"; his wife and eldest daughter were arrested along with him, while his younger children were sent to orphanages.[4] The sentence was overturned by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court on 30 April 1954, and Rodionov was fully rehabilitated.[4] He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, and the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.[2]
Rodionov's positions by year
Career record according to Party plenum documents and reference works:[2]
| Years | Position |
|---|---|
| December 1935 – January 1938 | First Secretary of the Ivanovsky District Committee of the VKP(b), Gorky Region |
| January – July 1938 | Head of the Gorky Regional Department of Public Education |
| July 1938 – April 1939 | Third Secretary of the Gorky Regional Committee of the VKP(b) |
| April 1939 – January 1940 | Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Gorky Regional Soviet |
| January 1940 – March 1946 | First Secretary of the Gorky Regional Committee of the VKP(b) |
| from 24 October 1941 | Chairman of the Gorky City Defense Committee |
| March 1946 – March 1949 | Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR |
A park on the site of a cemetery
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Pechersky church was allocated new land for a cemetery — on what is now Rodionov Street, near the Mayak bus stop. In parish registers it was recorded as a parish cemetery, and in everyday use was known as "Na Vyselkakh" (At the Outskirts), later "U Varennogo".[3]
The question of closing the overcrowded cemetery was already being considered by the Gorky Krai Executive Committee in 1940; around the 1970s, a plot on Kazanskoye Highway, opposite what is now Verkhniye Pechyory, was set aside for new burials. By the 1980s the cemetery was closed: the closure was announced on the radio, and relatives were offered the option of relocating graves. In the early 1980s, crosses and monuments were demolished by a tractor, the site was levelled and converted into a public park, with a concrete base for a fountain placed at its centre.[3]
The park at house No. 23 remains the only green space for residents of the five high-rise buildings in the Mayak microdistrict; there is no lighting, no paved paths, no benches, and no rubbish bins — people walk along worn dirt tracks.[3] Since 2016, proposals have been under discussion to allocate part of the park for a church dedicated to the Apostle Timothy and the Grand Martyr Tatiana.[3]
The road and the metro
In the autumn of 2022, the intersection of Rodionov and Brinsky Streets was widened to four lanes in the direction away from the city centre: one lane left onto Lysogorskaya, two straight ahead, one right. The junction's capacity increased by approximately one third.[5] The asphalt removed at that time was returned for the 2023 resurfacing works.[6]
From 2025, metro construction has been tearing up the street: a pit approximately 800 metres long is being dug for the Sennaya station and the reversing sidings beyond it.[7] To keep traffic moving, Mosproekt-3, under a contract dated August 2025 worth 76 million roubles, built bypass roads — one connecting the Kazanskaya Embankment to Rodionov Street, the other running alongside the buildings for approximately 800 metres.[8]
The bypass road opened on the night of 2 December 2025: two lanes in each direction, a 40 km/h speed limit, two bus stops near houses No. 1 and No. 11, and three signalised pedestrian crossings.[9] In August 2026, metro construction workers resumed work after a spring pause and are installing pit shoring using the "diaphragm wall" method: more than eighty bays and 260 metres of capping beam.[10]
A further bypass road is being designed separately — from Maxim Gorky Street to Brinsky Street along the Kova River; the planning documentation is being prepared by the municipal firm Nizhegorodgrazhdanproekt.[11]
Because of the reversing complex, it will be the longest — around 800 metres.[7]
See also
Sources
- gordumannov.ru — City Duma of Nizhny Novgorod — Rodionov Street: boundaries and extent of the repair section
- opentextnn.ru — Open Text — First Secretaries of the Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky) Party Organisation: Rodionov Mikhail Ivanovich
- cgnn.ru — Nizhegorodgrazhdanproekt — Rodionova, 23: the site of the former cemetery — a historical note by Galina Oleandrova
- dnnmuseum.gulagmemory.org — Museum "The House on the Embankment" — Mikhail Ivanovich Rodionov (1907–1950)
- GIPERNN — GiperNN — The traffic capacity of Rodionov Street will increase by 30%, 3 November 2022
- GIPERNN — GiperNN — Rodionov Street road to be repaired in 2023, 14 March 2023
- GIPERNN — GiperNN — New metro stations in Nizhny Novgorod: map and construction schedule, 5 August 2022
- abnews.ru — ABN 24 — Rodionov Street in Nizhny Novgorod torn up, 30 September 2025
- NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Photos of the Rodionov Street bypass road published, 2 December 2025
- NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Metro construction workers resume work on Rodionov Street, 27 August 2026
- V Gorode N — What is known about the construction of the Rodionov Street bypass road, 24 June 2026