Bolshoe Boldino, (Pushkin's) Boldino — a selo (a larger village) 230 km to the southeast of Nizhny Novgorod, 38 km from the Uzhövka railway station.
The administrative center of the Bolsheboldinsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Region (0.9 thousand sq. km, 14 thousand inhabitants).
Brief History
The selo was built on Mordva lands and has been known since the 16th century under the name Zabortniki (the modern name probably derives from the personal Mordva name Bolday); even then it belonged to the Pushkin family.
In the early 1580s, Ivan the Terrible granted Boldino as a service estate to Yevstafy Mikhaylovich Pushkin, who had distinguished himself as a military governor during the defense of Smolensk against a Lithuanian incursion in 1580, as well as during difficult diplomatic negotiations with the Polish king Stefan Batory.
In 1612, Ivan Fyodorovich Pushkin, a participant in the Nizhny Novgorod Militia of Prince Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin, received the village of Boldino in Arzamas Uyezd as a hereditary estate.
After the death of the childless Ivan Fyodorovich, Boldino was granted by Tsar Mikhail as a hereditary estate to his brother Fyodor Fyodorovich Pushkin in recognition of his special services during the defense of Moscow against the besieging forces of the Polish prince Władysław.
From the beginning of the 18th century, the Boldino ancestral estate was held by the poet's direct forebears: his great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and grandfather, and from the early 19th century by the poet's father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin.
Pushkin visited the selo three times (in 1830, 1833, and 1834) and worked there with great productivity.
In 1834, the poet took upon himself the management of his father's entire estate in the hope of saving it from impending ruin, and visited Boldino once more.
Memory of the Poet
The park has survived, as has Luchinnik Grove, a favorite of the poet; the manor house with its complex of outbuildings has been restored and now forms the heart of the state museum-reserve. Pushkin festivals are held here. The village was home to a folklore choir known throughout the country; the local historian I. V. Kireyev worked here, and the celebrated storyteller A. V. Alekseyeva lives here. The Pushkin sites were declared protected by the peasants themselves in 1918. A monument to Pushkin has been erected.
Points of Interest
- The A. S. Pushkin State Museum-Reserve "Boldino"
- Museum of the Literary Heroes of "The Belkin Tales"
- Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos
Interesting Facts
- The disappearance of the name Bolday, from which the selo takes its name, is connected with the outright ban imposed by Peter I's government on all non-ecclesiastical personal names at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century.