Gorodets, Russia

Gorodets is a city (since 1171) in the Nizhny Novgorod region of Russia. The city is located on the left bank of the Volga (Gorkovskoe reservoir), 53 km above Nizhny Novgorod and 14 km northeast of the Zavolzhye railway station (the terminal station of the electrified line from Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhny Novgorod hydroelectric station).

 

Geography

The city is located on the left bank of the Volga (Gorky reservoir), 53 km above Nizhny Novgorod and 14 km northeast of the Zavolzhye railway station (the terminal station of the electrified line from Nizhny Novgorod, Nizhegorodskaya hydroelectric power station).

 

Destinations

Museums
Gorodets is known not only as the oldest city in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the center of folk crafts (woodcarving, painting), but also as a city-museum. It is the only city in the region that has a Museum Quarter in its historical part. The central place in it is occupied by the local history museum - one of the first regional museums of the Nizhny Novgorod region (along with the Vetluzhsky), which arose in 1918. Since 1920 he has occupied the mansion of the merchant I.P. Oblayev the Younger on the street. Lenin, 11 (former Merchant). The collection of the museum includes about 16 thousand items of storage of the main fund. Its collection of archaeological antiquities of the XII-XIV centuries, which includes a princely helmet of the XIII-XIV centuries decorated with silver and gold, as well as a hanging lead seal of Prince Alexander Nevsky, is of all-Russian significance. In April 1991, on the basis of the museum, the All-Russian conference "Gorodets Readings" was held for the first time, which later became a traditional regional scientific forum with the participation of leading archaeologists, historians, archivists, specialists in the protection of ancient monuments, and since 2016 the museum is a co-organizer and a platform for holding a traditional seminar "Archeology of the Nizhny Novgorod Volga region and adjacent territories". In 2007, on the basis of the local history museum, the Gorodetsky historical and artistic museum complex was created, which has several more museums located next to it and on the neighboring ones - Andrei Rublev Street, Revolution Embankment and Alexandrovskaya Embankment:

Children's Museum on Kupecheskaya
Museum "Gorodetsky Gingerbread": opened on July 26, 2008 in the main house of the former mansion of the merchant S.F. Tryapkin, which is an architectural and urban planning monument of federal significance. The building is located at the very beginning of the museum quarter, at the crossroads of Lenin and Kirov streets. The museum tells about the history of the gingerbread business and modern gingerbread production. The Gorodetsky Gingerbread Museum is the second (after a similar Tula museum) dedicated to the history of sweet craft.
Museum "House of Countess Panina"
Museum "Terem of the Russian Samovar": opened on September 8, 2007 in the Grishaev estate, which is an architectural monument of the 19th century. The basis of the museum's collection was the private collection of Nikolai Fyodorovich Polyakov, head of the Zemsky Assembly of the Gorodetsky Municipal District. The collection includes over 400 samovars and is considered the largest in Russia. In September 2017, N.F. Polyakov's samovar collection was donated to the city.
City of masters
Museum "Gallery of Good"
In 2016, a private museum "Gorodets on the Volga" was opened, in the exposition of which there is a collection of old coins, items of clothing and everyday life of officials of the pre-revolutionary era, a collection of paintings by contemporary artists.

 

 

History

Gorodets in the Middle Ages
Gorodets is one of the oldest Russian cities on the Middle Volga; it arose in the 2nd half of the 12th century as a fortress to protect the borders of Vladimir Rus from the campaigns of the Volga Bulgars.

In popular and local history literature, there is a widespread point of view about the foundation of Gorodets in 1152 by Yuri Dolgoruky, which was also adopted by a number of official publications. However, most scholars attribute the foundation of the city to the reign of Andrei Bogolyubsky. The history of Gorodets dates back to 1171, when it was mentioned in the Laurentian Chronicle in connection with the campaign of Prince Mstislav Andreyevich against the Volga Bulgaria. Archaeological excavations also allow us to attribute the emergence of the city to the second half of the 12th century.

In February 1238, the city was burned by Batu's troops, but quickly rebuilt and between 1263 and 1282 it was the capital of the Gorodets principality. November 14 (Art. Style) 1263 on the way from the Golden Horde in Gorodets, the great Vladimir Prince Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky died. According to church tradition, on the eve of his death, he took monastic vows at the Fedorov Monastery with the name of Schema monk Alexy.

After the death of Alexander Nevsky, his third son, Andrei Alexandrovich, received the Gorodets principality as an inheritance and ruled over it until his death. Prince Andrey was the initiator of violent civil strife in Vladimir-Suzdal Rus in the 1280-1290s. The last ten years of his life he occupied the throne in Vladimir. He died on July 27, 1304, was buried in the church of Mikhail the Archangel Gorodets (not preserved).

In the second half of the XIV century, it was part of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod Grand Duchy (founded in 1341), was the center of the appanage reign. A significant role in the political life of the region at that time was played by the Gorodets prince Boris Konstantinovich from the dynasty of the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod grand dukes. Gorodets is known as the birthplace of the famous icon painter Elder Prokhor from Gorodets - the mentor of Andrei Rublev.

In December 1408, it was burned by Edigey, after which it left the political map of Russia, for a long time being called Empty Gorodets.

About 1469 Afanasy Nikitin visited the city.

In 1565, after Tsar Ivan the Terrible divided the Russian state into oprichnina and zemstvo, the city became part of the latter.

Gorodets in modern times
Until 1700, the Volga changed its course and moved away from the center of Gorodets. It reappeared as a craft village in the late 16th - early 17th centuries. Gorodets was a volost village of Yuryevets, then - Balakhninsky districts.

Since the end of the 18th century it has been known as the center of wooden shipbuilding, grain trade, baking of printed gingerbread, as a point of sale for handicrafts made of wood - the so-called "chips" (wooden dishes, spinning wheels, etc.). According to contemporaries, in winter the Saturday bazaar in Gorodets was not inferior to many fairs, covering several nearby counties of the Nizhny Novgorod, Vladimir and Kostroma provinces with its influence.

The second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries was the heyday of Gorodets. Remaining a volost village, Gorodets acquired the features of a rich merchant town. There were two iron foundries and mechanical factories, shipyards for the construction of barges in Zaton and Nizhnyaya Sloboda, a steam mill, tanneries and timber mills, and gingerbread establishments. With the money of merchants-benefactors in Gorodets, an orphanage, public schools, men's and women's gymnasiums, an all-estate club (with an auditorium for a theater and a library), a voluntary fire brigade, a sobriety society, and much more were set up.

At this time, Gorodets was a large trade center (in 1890, goods arrived in it along the Volga, 2,258 thousand poods, and 525 thousand poods were sent), and the main trade item was bread. There were three Orthodox churches in the village, as well as an Old Believer chapel (Gorodets was one of the main centers of the priestly Old Believers).

The newest history of Gorodets
In 1921, the center of the Balakhna district was moved to Gorodets, and the district was renamed into Gorodetsky. In 1922 it received the status of a county town, but socialist transformations broke its previous economic structure. The first Soviet five-year plans did not significantly change the appearance of Gorodets. Due to the lack of sites for large industrial enterprises and railway communication with Gorky, the socio-economic life of the city developed slowly.

In the post-war period (1950-1960s) the city received an impetus for development. The shipyard, the ship repair and mechanical plant were overhauled, a shoe factory, a stitching factory and the Gorodetskaya painting factory were built. The Spartak stadium, which was then one of the best in the region, became a gem of the city. During these years, mass housing construction began, which continued later (the settlement of the shipyard, the settlement of the mechanical plant, the Furmanovsky, Severny microdistricts, etc.).

 

In the 1960s-1980s, in the area of ​​Proletarskaya Square, the administrative center of the city was practically re-formed (administration, social and cultural institutions, school, kindergarten, city park, department stores, bus station, etc.) In the area of ​​the village of Matronino, in the continuation of Novaya and On the Gorodets - Nizhny Novgorod highway, a residential area of ​​Melioratorov was laid. The city will probably grow in this direction in the future.

The annual City Day became an incentive for the revival of Gorodets as a small historical town and a center of folk crafts. It has been held since 1984 on the first weekend of September (first on the second Sunday, then on the second Saturday of the month).

Recently, inbound tourism and museums have been actively developing in Gorodets. This was largely facilitated by the regional festivals "Gorodets - Museum Capital" (since 2003) and "Masters of the People's Brotherhood" (since 2002 on the third Saturday of July).

Since 2006, the city has been successfully implementing a regional program for the development of culture and tourism called "Gorodets - the 21st century." In the course of the program, the central part of the city was improved, new museums were opened, the Fedorov Monastery was renewed, and the City of Masters museum and tourist complex was built (both in 2009).

Gingerbread
Gorodets has long been famous for printed gingerbread. Contrary to the opinion widespread in the local history literature about the local gingerbread business as early as the 17th century, documentary evidence of the gingerbread craft in the village of Gorodets, Balakhninsky district, dates back to the end of the 18th century. Judging by the reviews of contemporaries, the gingerbread craft at that time was already quite large. The earliest known gingerbread boards of Gorodets masters (kept in the collection of the State Historical Museum) date back to the last quarter of the 18th century. The development of the gingerbread business in Gorodets was facilitated by the large trade in bread at the local bazaar, as well as the proximity of the Nizhny Novgorod fair, from where the gingerbreads were sold throughout the Volga region, went to the Urals, Don, Central Asia. The flourishing of Gorodets' sweet craft fell on the end of the 19th century. At that time, more than 30 varieties of gingerbread were baked here (some reached a weight of up to one and a half pounds), 15 gingerbread establishments worked. Most of the gingerbread were Old Believers. The most famous dynasties of gingerbread masters are the Bakharevs, Belyaevs, Glazunovs, Lemekhovs, Shcherbakovs.

During the years of Soviet power, the gingerbread craft declined sharply. In 1930, an artel "Red Gingerbread" was created, later transformed into the Gorodetsky food processing plant. Keeping the traditions of old masters, the food-processing plant baked a printed gingerbread "Sterlyadki" weighing 5 kg. The author of the printed board for him was a descendant of the famous dynasty of gingerbread masters - the carver Georgy (Yegor) Illarionovich Bakharev.

In the 1970s, a new stage in the development of the gingerbread business began in Gorodets. This was a great merit of the director of the food processing plant Nina Petrovna Shishkina. Under her leadership, an original recipe for a printed gingerbread was created under the name "Gorodetsky Souvenir", and new printed boards were ordered to the talented woodcarving master Valery Georgievich Zelenin.

Currently, the main producers of printed gingerbread are Anna Grigorievna Voronina's Gorodetsky Gingerbread enterprise (the former collective of the Gorodetsky food processing plant) and JSC Gorodetsky Confectioner (also known under the brand name LyuVeNa - Lyubov, Vera, Nadezhda). Printed boards are cut by local craftsmen Valery Zelenin, Sergey Sokolov, Viktor Galibin. The largest printed gingerbread in Gorodets is baked annually for the regional festival “Folk Brotherhood Masters”. It weighs 20 kg and is made from the board of the famous Gorodets carver Andrei Kolov, which was intended for casting a cast-iron panel to decorate the museum quarter. The giant gingerbread consists of four parts, baked separately and sealed with sugar glaze.