The House of Peter I
Peter Alekseevich Romanov is the first Russian emperor who went down in history under the name of Peter the Great. A personality not fully solved by history, but from this no less bright and great. His bold reforms, his great conquests transformed the face of the country. Every Russian certainly remembers the winged Pushkin lines: Man of the sword, man of the scroll,
As shipmate and as shipwright known,
For with his all-embracing soul
He was a workman on the throne.
Indeed, the sovereign leader of the Russian land was not afraid of any work and did not know any obstacles. Peter the Great spent almost half of his life on the road. Be proud, fellow countrymen! Nizhny Novgorod is included in the list of Russian cities he has visited. Peter the Great visited our city twice. Like all the first, the first visit remained in the memory of contemporaries and descendants. The young tsar appeared on the Volga shores in the spring of 1695. He arrived in the city on the Volga at the head of a large caravan. A whole army descended with him – the Preobrazhensky, Semenovsky and Lefortovsky regiments. They went on 150 boats. Another 40 boats were with artillery and various military supplies. Peter was young. He was only 23 years old. The age of modern students. He was full of strength and daring plans. The great reformer of Russia was preparing for the first great campaign – the conquest of the Turkish fortress of Azov. He was making a way for the Russian people to the sea. Peter already understood at that time that great Russia needed to go out to sea, trade widely and freely, adopt all the best from abroad. As the German philosopher Karl Marx aptly remarked, «no great nation has ever lived and could not live in such a distance from the sea, in which the empire of Peter the Great was located at the beginning…» The townspeople were preparing to meet the tsar: they paved the streets, brewed beer, and stored food for the army. Since medieval Nizhny Novgorod was small, the population of the city was small. The scribal books of 1682 recorded 3,622 households. At that time, wooden buildings prevailed in Nizhny Novgorod, where could the sovereign stay for the night? There is a unique historical territory in Nizhny Novgorod – Zapochainye. Here, among the blocks of a very picturesque development near the Pochaina River, merchant Yefim Chatygin built white stone chambers more than 340 years ago. The exact date of their construction is unknown, presumably they were erected in the 1680s. A new two-storey stone house with a massive foundation, thick walls, vaulted extensive basements, small windows in patterned architraves. The building looked solid, elegant and rich. It was quite consistent with the status of a distinguished guest. Nizhny Novgorod legend says that during the week (May 16-23) tsar Peter I lived in the house of merchant Chatygin. He oversaw the reloading of artillery from small vessels to large ones for further passage down the Volga. The tsar spent part of his time on a trip to the Chernorechensky zaton on the Volga. Here he ordered the construction of wooden vessels suitable for navigation on the river and at sea to begin. The invited masters taught the locals how to build ships. The sovereign wrote from Nizhny Novgorod to Moscow to Prince Caesar Fyodor Yuryevich Romodanovsky, Duma clerk, nobleman Andrei Andreevich Vinius, translator of the Embassy order Andrei Yuryevich Krevet. The tsar complained in letters about the contrary winds that delayed the caravan for many days, lamented the lack of experienced helmsman-masters. The military flotilla sailed from Nizhny Novgorod on May 23, 1695. The campaign of 1695 ended in failure: Azov was not taken. But this is a completely different story. The oldest residential buildings in the city is still standing. It is known as the chambers of merchant Yefim Chatygin or Peter's House. This is a typical example of Russian stone architecture of the XVII century. The structure has seen a lot in its time: people lived here, wine and beer warehouses were located, tramps lived. In 1890, a historical museum was opened in the house. The chambers have undergone three restorations in their lifetime. The last restoration took place in 2015. On October 20, 1996, Russia celebrated the 300th anniversary of the Russian fleet. At the same time, a memorial sign appeared on the facade of the building – a bronze high relief with the image of Peter I. The authors of the memorial plaque to the founder of the national fleet are the sculptor T.G.Kholueva and the architect A.I.Ulanovsky. The young tsar holds a model of a sailboat in his hand. In the lower part of the high relief there is an inscription: «To the founder of the Russian fleet, Peter I. 1696-1996. Residents of Nizhny Novgorod». It is a pity that now the seal of desolation lies on the monument of culture. How quickly something that was created by the painstaking work of stonecutters and restorers comes to desolation. While there is still time, take a walk along the old Nizhny Novgorod street. Go to Peter's House, imagine how the tsar carpenter, tsar skipper, bombardier Peter the Great is approaching him with a sweeping step. 