Kulibina Park — a park in the Historic Center of Nizhny Novgorod, between Belinsky Street and Gorky Street Streets.
The park stretches 415 meters along Belinsky Street, and approximately 300 meters from Belinsky to Gorky.
It covers an area of 12 hectares.
Location
Located in Nizhegorodsky District, in the so-called golden triangle. It runs from north to south between Gorky Street and Belinsky Street, and from west to east between Ashkhabadskaya and Osharskaya Street Streets.
Plantings
The park retains old trees: linden, birch, maple, and poplar, along with younger plantings.
Culture
Along the park's alleys there are many benches where amateur chess players traditionally gather.
Monuments
- Bust of Kulibin — a work by sculptor A. V. Kikin from the early 1940s (at the park entrance from Gorky Street, by the Youth Theatre).
- Monument to Maxim Gorky, sculptor A. V. Kikin, early 1940s (in the center of the park, at the intersection of paths leading from the park's four corners).
- A monument with a high-relief of Kulibin next to his grave, sculptor Gusev Pavel Ivanovich, erected in 1985 (at the entrance to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul).
- A stele with a bas-relief on the grave of Gorky's grandmother, Akulina Ivanovna Kashirina (in the center of the park, along the axis of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul).
History
The territory of the present-day park was formerly occupied by the All-Saints Petropavlovskoye Cemetery (All Saints Cemetery) — a site of regional cultural heritage.
The cemetery was established in 1775 on Varvarskoe Field following the closure of church burial grounds within the city. In 1781, the merchants Neudakins constructed the Church of Saints Peter and Paul (architect Ya. A. Ananyin) in order to preserve the parish of a closed church of which the Neudakins were parishioners. In 1818, the self-taught Nizhny Novgorod mechanic Ivan Kulibin was buried in the cemetery.
In 1939–1940, the cemetery was closed and a park was laid out on its grounds. By the 1960s, the park had been fully developed: a number of park pavilions and fairground attractions were built, and the Gorky monument was erected. The Church of Saints Peter and Paul housed the Pioner cinema, and later a disco. In 1963, the Sputnik cinema building was constructed.
In the 1990s, the church was returned to believers. The Lenin monument that had stood at the entrance near the Sputnik cinema was dismantled. By now, the old fairground attractions (bumper cars, swings, carousels) have been removed. The renovated café building (no longer operating) and the shooting gallery (now used as a warehouse) remain in their original locations.
History of the Park in the Stories of Nizhny Novgorod Residents
Have you ever seen a historical map of Petropavlovskoye Cemetery (Kulibina Park)?
The site of the Nizhny Novgorod Theatre for Young Audiences was once residential housing. By the early twentieth century, the cemetery lay between Polevaya Street (now Maxim Gorky Street) and Napolno-Lesnaya Street (now part of Belinsky Street). Behind what is now the Youth Theatre, a short Zamkovaya Street led up to the cemetery (it has since been eliminated).
Between the backyards of properties along Osharskaya Street and the cemetery grounds, a lane of varying width emerged that never acquired a fixed name. It was referred to variously as Bezymyanny (Nameless), Kladbishchensky (Cemetery), or Petropavlovsky Lane, and was sometimes considered an extension of Vseskhsvyatsky Lane (now Granitny Lane and part of Reshetnikovskaya Street).