Zelensky Descent is a street in Nizhegorodsky District of Nizhny Novgorod, connecting the upper part of the city near Minin and Pozharsky Square with the Lower Posad near Skoba and Rozhdestvenskaya Street. It was laid along the bottom of the ancient moat that surrounded the Kremlin; traffic along it opened on September 22, 1839, and the descent became the main thoroughfare between the upper and lower parts of the city.[1] In everyday speech it is called the Pipe — for its narrowness and steep gradients.

Name

The descent took its name from the Zeleyny Dvor — a gunpowder depot and factory with a water mill that stood in olden times at the bottom of the Pochaina Ravine.[1][2] In the Russian of the 16th–17th centuries, "zelye" meant gunpowder, hence Zeleynaya Gora, the Zeleyny Dvor, and the Zelensky Descent.

The second, colloquial name — the Pipe — is a metaphor: the descent is narrow and squeezed between the Kremlin hill and the slope of the ravine.

The moat and the layout of the descent

The moat encircled the Kremlin only where its walls were not protected by the steep slopes of the Pochaina and the Volga: from the Georgievskaya Tower to the Koromyslova Tower and near the Ivanovskaya Tower. Its depth ranged from 2.5 to 4 meters and its width from 25 to 30; the Kremlin walls began at the bottom of the moat, and this sunken position protected their foundations from artillery.[2]

By the end of the 18th century, the moat had crumbled and obstructed traffic. In the 1830s, sections of it were filled in, boulevards were laid out along the walls, and a road was built alongside, connecting the Upper and Lower Posads.[2] The work was carried out under the program of urban transformation of Nizhny Novgorod; the thoroughfare was opened on September 22, 1839.[1]

Zelensky Descent, stretching for almost a verst, is superbly built: it is extremely gently sloping, which makes it very convenient for hauling heavy wagons up the hill; above it on the right rises the kremlin, fringed by a boulevard, and on the left is the hill with a terrace, which drops in a steep ledge down the cliff into the Pochaina Ravine. Zelensky Descent comes out onto the Lower Bazaar somewhat above Rozhdestvenskaya Street, right by the Kazan Church.

— Nikolay Khramtsovsky, historian of Nizhny Novgorod[3]

The Approach to the Volga and Shirokaya Street

The descent comes out to the bank of the Volga by way of Shirokaya Street. In ancient times this was the valley of the Pochaina River, which is why the rows of the Lower Posad market, and from the 18th century the buildings of the stone Gostiny Dvor (merchants' arcade), stood on different riverbank terraces, set apart from one another. During the radical reconstruction of the city in the 1830s–1840s, the Pochaina was enclosed in a stone collector and gradually buried under earth, but the gap between the blocks remained: the street received its name, "Shirokaya" (Wide), for its unusual width when the 1839 plan of Nizhny Novgorod was approved.

Buildings

House No. 4 is a city commercial building erected by the merchant Nikolay Bugrov. In 1880–1885 the Bugrovs built a flophouse for nine hundred people on Rozhdestvenskaya, where each person was given a pound of bread and boiling water free of charge; to fund the flophouse, Nikolay Aleksandrovich Bugrov built an income-producing building next to it, at the exit of the Zelensky Descent. It was constructed in 1885–1888, and the profit from renting out its shops went to the shelter.[4] The building was designed by the architect Vladimir Maksimovich Lemke.

House No. 8 is the former clergy house of the Kazan Church in the Lower Posad, built in 1867–1872. It is associated with Lev Vladimirovich Dal, an academician of architecture: when finishing the façade, concrete was used here for the first time in Nizhny Novgorod. The banded rustication was made of crushed brick on a concrete mortar, which turned out handsome, cheap, and durable.[5]

Kazan Church

The Kazan Church at the foot of the Kremlin was considered one of the oldest in the city: a description from 1621 lists it as a wooden church, "wooden on substructures, with a porch, with a tented top."[6] In 1687 the merchant Afanasy Olisov replaced it with a brick church, with three altars, in memory of the feat of the Nizhny Novgorod militia.[6] In the 1950s the church was demolished.[6]

The church's revival was tied to National Unity Day: the foundation was laid on November 3, 2005, by Patriarch Alexy II. In 2006 a design competition was held, and the sketch by the architect Yevgeny Pestov was judged the best; on January 22, 2009, the crosses, domes, and bell tower were consecrated, and on November 3, 2012, Archbishop George performed the rite of consecration of the church and the first liturgy.[6] The church stands on a platform between Ilyinskaya Street and the Zelensky Descent, at the exit to Narodnogo Edinstva Square.

Landslides and slope reinforcement

The slope above the descent is unstable. On March 27, 2026, soil slid straight onto the roadway and blocked traffic; photos that appeared the same day showed cracks, and the engineering protection service began inspecting neighboring sections.[7] On March 28 a second landslide occurred, and the descent was closed completely.[8]

After consultations with the Territorial Engineering Protection Department and specialists from the university of construction, the loose soil was brought down deliberately, with the help of industrial climbers, and from March 31 traffic resumed with partial restrictions. To eliminate the consequences of the emergency, the city authorities signed a contract with Kamenograd Privolzhsky LLC for about 16.4 million rubles; the contractor is obliged to carry out demolition work, reinforce the earthen slopes, and repair the path along the retaining wall on Pozharsky Street by the end of 2026, with funding coming from the city budget. The client for the slope reinforcement work was the administration of Nizhegorodsky District, and the contract's completion period was set from June 5 to October 1, 2026.[9][10][11]

The city administration cited soil oversaturated with moisture after an anomalously snowy winter as the cause. The Zelensky Descent was not the only place in Nizhny Novgorod affected by landslide processes in the spring of 2026: on the slope at the foot of Shveytsariya Park, part of a retaining wall collapsed, along with trees and a pedestrian path.[12][13] By July 2026, a geogrid was being installed on the graded surface of the slope; the next stage is to reinforce the slope with screw piles, and at the end of the work the surface will be covered with a layer of topsoil and seeded with lawn grass. At the same time, the configuration of the roadway on Pozharsky Street above the slope is being changed and the drainage system is being rebuilt to channel water away from the slope.[13][3]

Painting of the railing, 2017

Over the weekend of April 29 – May 1, 2017, the long railing running along the western side of the descent (the only side with a sidewalk) was painted. One curious fact: the painting was done only on the side facing the roadway.

Today I saw the famous joke about Rabinovich painting the steamship brought to life. Last weekend the railing along the sidewalk leading from Rozhdestvenskaya Street to Lykova Dam was painted. But it turned out that the railing was painted only on the side facing the sidewalk, while the other side, "where it can't be seen," was left as it was. And, apparently to complete the overall impression of the work, a little dump of empty containers left over from the painting was left right there on the spot.

See also

Sources

  1. archives.nobl.ru
  2. ngiamz.ru — QR-Moat of the Kremlin and the Zelensky Descent — Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve — Nizhny Novgorod State Historical and Architectural… (archive)
  3. V gorode N — The slope on the Zelensky Descent is being reinforced after landslides: photos (archive)
  4. russiainphoto.ru — Photo "Bugrov's Flophouse Before Its Opening," 1890s, Nizhny Novgorod, 2 Rozhdestvenskaya Street — History of Russia in Photographs (archive)
  5. pravenc.ru (archive)
  6. nne.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Metropolis (archive)
  7. NIA "Nizhny Novgorod" — New landslides may occur on the Zelensky Descent (archive)
  8. NN.RU — NN.RU, March 30, 2026 — Landslide on the Zelensky Descent in Nizhny… (archive)
  9. Vremya N — The customer for the slope reinforcement work was the administration of Nizhegorodsky District, and the contractor chosen through public procurement was OOO "Kamnegrad
  10. nn.dk.ru — To eliminate the consequences of the emergency on the slope of the Zelensky Descent, city authorities signed a contract with OOO "Kamenograd Privolzhsky" for about 16.4 m
  11. KP — Nizhny Novgorod — Komsomolskaya Pravda — Nizhny Novgorod, March 31, 2026 — Traffic on the Zelensky Descent will be partially… — … — Traffic on the Zelensky Descent will be partially reopened on March 31… (archive)
  12. GIPERNN — The Zelensky Descent turned out not to be the only place in Nizhny Novgorod affected by landslide processes in the spring of 2026: on the slope at the foot of Shveytsariya Park
  13. Nizhegorodskaya Pravda — The slope of the Zelensky Descent is being reinforced after an abnormally snowy winter (archive)