Gaginsky District is located in the southeastern part of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
The district borders the Buturlinskiy District, Lukoyanovskiy District, Shatkovsky District, Sergachsky District, Krasnooktyabrskiy District, and Bolsheboldinsky District Districts.
The administrative center of the district is the selo of Gagino.
Two rivers flow through the district: the Pyana River and the The Ezhat River.
History of the District
Gagino, as a settlement, has a very ancient history. Gaginsky District has long been inhabited by the Mordva. Russians began settling the lands along the Pyana River shortly after Tsar Ivan the Terrible's Kazan campaign of 1552. After the defeat of Kazan, participants in the campaign were granted unoccupied lands as a reward.
Among them was the military governor Ivan Vasilyevich Gagin. Newly established settlements were typically named after their owner. This is how the selo of Gagino came into being. Ivan Gagin built the Church of the Nativity of the Most Pure Mother of God on his estate. As early as 1591, the record mentions "the Ivanovsky princely Gagino selo." The princely Gagin family traces its lineage to the Varangian Rurik. Over many centuries, princely lines diminished and fell into poverty. A descendant of Rurik in the 19th generation, the Yaroslavl prince Vasily Vasilyevich Shastun, was a boyar in 1487 and died in 1495. His son Pyotr bore the nickname "the Great," served as okolnichy and dvoretsky, and died in 1513; his grandson Andrei Petrovich also served as okolnichy, under the father of Ivan the Terrible, and died in 1529. Andrei had three sons: Alexander Nemy and two men named Vasily. Vasily Shakhameya fled to Lithuania to escape the oprichnina terror in 1568. Vasily Menshoy remained; his nickname was Gaga, meaning "laugher" or "mocker." Gaga's descendants came to be called the Gagins or the Velikiye Gagins (Velikogagins). All of this can be learned in detail at the Gaginsky District Museum.
Until 1929, the selo of Gagino was part of Sergachsky Uyezd of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. By June 1929, the Gaginsky Volost had been renamed Gaginsky District by resolution of the uyezd congress of Soviets, with the district center in the selo of Gagino. The territory of the new Gaginsky District comprised 116 populated localities with a population of 86,000 people and some 15,000 peasant households. Households without horses accounted for 60% of the total; there was not a single tractor, let alone a motor vehicle, and very few plows or iron harrows. Grain yields stood at 5–6 centners per hectare, and the average milk yield per cow was 1,425 kg. Buildings in the villages were mostly wooden and thatched with straw, which also served as the primary fuel. The economic, sanitary, and hygienic conditions of the population's daily life were described as unsatisfactory, and the level of cultural development was low. Three-quarters of the population were illiterate. The district had one secondary school, two incomplete secondary schools, and one primary school serving three or four villages.
Sights
Cultural Heritage
- Pashkov Estate
- Baron's Khutor
- Pyana River flows through Gaginsky District
Architectural Monuments
- Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior — 19th century, selo of Bolshaya Arat
- Church of St. John the Baptist — 1810–1819, selo of Vetoshkino
- Church of the Intercession — 1866, selo of Vorontsovo
- Church of the Intercession — 1833, selo of Gulyonki
- Trinity Church — 1864–1872, selo of Kakino
- Kazan Church — 1827 – early 20th century (side chapel), selo of Moiseyevka
- Church of the Intercession — 1871, selo of Novoyedelevo
- Trinity Church — 1833, selo of Osinovka
- Vladimir Church — 1824, selo of Utka
- Resurrection Church — 1819, selo of Yuryevo