Turgenev Street is a street in the Nizhegorodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod, near Sennaya Square. Before receiving the writer's name, it was known as Starosoldatskaya and Napolno-Soldatskaya [1].

Soldiers' Settlements

Both former names of the street referred not to an idea but to its residents: this part of the city was home to soldiers' settlements (soldatskiye slobody), and the neighboring Novo-Soldatskaya and Napolno-Soldatskaya streets were named after them as well [1]. The prefix "napolnaya" indicated that buildings stood only on one side of the street, with the other side opening onto open fields: the names Napolno-Monastyrskaya and Napolno-Zamkovaya streets were formed in the same way, and these were later merged into Belinsky Street [2].

The street received the name of Ivan Turgenev during the Soviet period; it appears under that name in the city directory of 1972 [1]. The broader picture of street renamings during those years is covered in the article Renamings of Streets and Squares of Nizhny Novgorod.

Building No. 30

In 1996, a nine-story building with two underground floors and a total area of approximately 13,500 square meters was constructed at 30 Turgenev Street — adjacent to the Petrovsky Plant — and was intended for use as the plant's office [3].

In 2007, the building was purchased by Intel Corporation, which established its development center there — the company's largest research center in Russia [4]. In 2024, Intel sold the property to the Corporation for the Development of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, which intends to make the space available to IT companies [3].

Development Plans

In August 2026, the regional Ministry of Urban Development amended the land use and construction regulations for a site within the boundaries of Turgenev Street, Kovrovskaya Street, and Boynovskiy Lane: the multi-functional public development zone was partially converted into engineering and transport infrastructure zones and a mixed multi-apartment and public development zone. The site permits residential buildings of up to 18 storeys, hotels with up to 150 rooms, shops, polyclinics, and sports facilities [5].

The surrounding area is one of the largest redevelopment reserves in the city centre: within the boundaries of Kovrovskaya Street, Rodnikovaya Street, Maxim Gorky Street, Sennaya Square, and Kazanskaya Embankment alone, there were approximately 35 landowners [6].

Sources

  1. universalinternetlibrary.ru — Streets of the City of Gorky: a reference guide, 1972 (archive)
  2. biblmr.r52.ru — Centralized Library System of Moskovsky District — Virtual Tour of the Streets of Nizhny Novgorod: history, old names, and legends (archive)
  3. Kommersant (Volga Region) — Nizhny Novgorod Region Development Corporation purchases former Intel building (archive)
  4. cnews.ru — Intel sold its office in Nizhny Novgorod. It was the largest research center in Russia (archive)
  5. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — Development regulations amended for three streets in central Nizhny Novgorod (archive)
  6. GIPERNN — Global Reset: what Sennaya Square will look like (archive)