Comintern Street

Kominterna Street (formerly Bolshaya) is a continuation of Sormovo Highway.

History

Before the construction of Moscow Highway in the mid-nineteenth century, the present-day Kominterna Street carried the main road to Moscow and Yaroslavl. In 1612, the militiamen of Kuzma Minin and Pozharsky marched along this road. Every autumn, military recruits made their way along it to Balakhna for conscription ("The big Sormovo road is all bathed in tears, all bathed in tears, along it walk the recruits").
With the rise of the Sormovo Plant, workers' demonstrations began to spill out onto Bolshaya Street. The street preserves the memory of the famous May Day demonstration of 1902 and the barricade battles of 1905. In 1917, Sormovo Red Guards marched down Bolshaya Street toward the Kremlin to take part in the establishment of Soviet power in Nizhny Novgorod.