Lukoyanovskiy District is one of the largest districts by area in Nizhny Novgorod Region, located 170 km southeast of Nizhny Novgorod.
The modern city of Lukoyanov is not only a district center but also the organizing hub of the southern zone of Nizhny Novgorod Region, which, in addition to Lukoyanovskiy District, includes Bolsheboldinsky District, Voznesenskiy District, Gaginsky District, Diveevskiy District, Pervomayskiy District, and Pochinkovskiy District Districts.
History
In the 20th Century
The founding date of Lukoyanovskiy District is considered to be July 4, 1929.
The settlement of the territory of modern Lukoyanovskiy District dates to the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (roughly 5,000 years ago). The Nizhny Novgorod Volga Region served as a frontier zone from the 12th century for more than 400 years — first of the Russian principalities, then of the centralized Russian state. It was the arena of numerous bloody wars with the Volga Bulgaria, then with the hordes of the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate, Nogai nomads, and other invaders. These wars devastated and decimated the local population, forcing it to retreat to safer places — the depths of the forests.
The cadastral books of the 16th century mention one Ivashka Lukoyanov, who settled in the upper reaches of the Tyosha and built a mill. He was the founder of the small village of Lukoyanovo. At first the village of Lukoyanovo was part of the estate of a landowner named Buturlin, then passed from hand to hand among various landowners, and by the 18th century the selo of Lukoyanov was already among the state-managed economic villages. In 1779, by decree of Empress Catherine II, Lukoyanov was granted the status of a town.
Lukoyanovskiy District from the Neolithic Era (an overview)
The settlement of the territory of modern Lukoyanovskiy District dates to the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (roughly 5,000 years ago). This is attested by the numerous stone tools found on the territory of our region — stone axes, scrapers, spear- and arrowheads, adzes, and others. The Lukoyanov local history museum displays an exhibition of these finds along with a map of the district marking the locations where they were discovered.
These locations correspond almost exactly to the territory of most of the district's present-day large settlements.
In the first millennium AD, the entire territory of the interfluve of the Oka, the Volga, the Sura River, and the Moksha was inhabited by Mordva tribes.
The ancient settlement of the district by the Mordva is evidenced by local toponymy and hydronymy. Even in places where there are now no Mordva settlements, many rivers, streams, ravines, and urochishche bear Mordva names: Kalamaleyka, Picheney, Veseley, Pekshat, Yezhat, Poyka, and others. Mordva words are also present in the names of Russian villages: Tolsky Maydan (tol — fire), Saldo Maydan (saldo — salt), Poya (aspen).
There are other traces of ancient Mordva settlement in our region as well. In 1926, an ancient Mordva burial ground was discovered near the village of Peremchalki, dated to the 9th–10th centuries AD. Excavations of the burial ground yielded bronze bracelets, rings, spindle whorls, iron tools, pottery, and other objects attesting to the economic activities and customs of the ancient Mordva. Other monuments of deep antiquity have also been found.
In 1975, the Fyodorovskoye hillfort was discovered on the territory of the neighboring Shatkovsky District. It is one type of fortified Mordva settlement known as a "tverd" (stronghold). Materials from the excavations of this hillfort are now kept in the Lukoyanov local history museum.
Until the second half of the 16th century the district's territory was very sparsely populated. This is explained by the fact that the Nizhny Novgorod Volga Region served as a frontier zone from the 12th century for more than 400 years — first of the Russian principalities, then of the centralized Russian state. It was the arena of numerous bloody wars — first with the Volga Bulgaria, then with the hordes of the Golden Horde, the Kazan Khanate, Nogai nomads, and others. As a result of these wars the local Mordva population found itself in a very difficult position. It could not take an independent stance in these conflicts, and so shifted allegiance between the Tatars and the Russians, being struck from both sides in turn. The wars devastated and decimated the local population, forcing it to retreat to safer places — the depths of the forests.
"Mordva settlements of that period typically consisted of 7 to 10 households, located primarily deep in forested areas where Tatar detachments could not reach; in the more remote forest clearings, temporary dwellings called 'zimnitsy' (winter shelters) were erected. Open spaces were almost uninhabited and began to be settled only after the raids of the Kazan Tatars and Nogai nomads ceased" (Veselovsky S. B. Arzamas Manorial Acts. 1918. P. 82). This came about after the capture of Kazan by the forces of Ivan the Terrible in 1552. As a result of that campaign, the southeastern border of the Russian state was pushed south from the Pyana and Serezha rivers to the Alatyr River. A frontier barrier of abatis lines was established here, with the Puz Gates, which protected the territory of the future Lukoyanov uyezd — at that time part of the Zalesny Stan of Lukoyanov Uyezd — from enemy raids.
The tsarist government had an interest in guarding and developing the territory that had been devastated by wars and had previously been a neutral zone, lying between the old abatis lines along the Pyana and Serezha and the new abatis lines along the Alatyr. Today this is the entire south of Nizhny Novgorod Region, including the territory of Lukoyanovskiy District.
Service people were drawn here by various privileges; at the same time, fugitive peasants fleeing landlord oppression resettled here on their own. Simultaneously, the tsarist government began distributing local lands and holdings on a large scale to Russian, Tatar, and Mordva nobles who had taken part in Ivan the Terrible's Kazan campaigns. The colonization of the region by Russian settlers began.
Among the new landowners were many feudal estate-holders who owned peasants and lands in the central Russian regions. They began forcibly resettling their peasants to the new lands. On cleared forest wastelands, hundreds of Russian and Mordva settlements were established anew.
The history of individual settlements and the origins of their names are of particular interest. The main source for studying the history of the settlement of Lukoyanovskiy District is the "Cadastral Book of the Beekeeping and Mordva Villages of Arzamas Uyezd, compiled by cadastral officials V. F. Kireyev and Grigory Molchanov in 1677." The origins of settlement names can also be established from the Arzamas manorial acts. These names are generally connected with the names of the new landowners. Thus, a charter concerning the demarcation of the estates of the Lopatin family and Varvara Mikulina, dated February 14, 1595, mentions the village of Kurovo. The charter states that this village was held by Ivan Gavrilov, son of Mikulin, as an old estate on the Oshnara River. In 17th-century documents the village of Kurovo is already referred to as Gavrilovo, after the name of its landowner. The origins of the villages of Lopatin and Nikulino are established from the same documents. In the spring of 1595, by royal order, the estates of Tretyak and Fyodor Lopatin were demarcated from the estates of the Ivanovskaya, wife of Mikulin. The lands to the left of the Oshnara River passed to the Lopatins, where the village of Lopatino arose, and those to the right passed to the Mikulins, where the village of Nikulino appeared. Present at the division of the land was the Chufarovo priest and junior boyars the Savrasovs. The latter arrived in Zalesny Stan with the permission of boyar I. S. Rzhevsky and founded the village of Savrasovo. In 1610 it was granted to the court official Ivan Kireyev. In the boundary books of Alexei Teplov's estates (1598), the landowner Bogdan Sonin is mentioned for the first time: he came to Zalesny Stan to the wasteland of Suvorovskoye Usadishche on the Oshnara River. This wasteland lay adjacent to the estate of Ivan Gavrilov and had belonged to the landowner Ulyanin. In the wasteland, where there were neither buildings nor people, Bogdan founded the village of Sonino.
And to the place of the present-day Merlinovka came the landowner Plakida Merlin, intending to add the territory granted to him in Zalesny Stan to his estate; it was entirely natural that the village took the name of its estate-holder.
The boundary books of Ivan and Timofey Yesinov and Stepan Safronov from 1598 mention the village of Ulyanovo. It was founded by Lithuanian gunners who had been released from captivity in Nizhny Novgorod and who had helped the city's residents repel a Tatar army assault in 1550. The Lithuanians, led by Pan Ulyan, were settled on lands of the future Lukoyanov uyezd. Here the village of Ulyanovo arose. The names of the villages of Bolshoye Mamleyevo and Bolshiye Ari also derive from the names of their first landowners — the Tatar murzy Mamleyka and Arka, who had gone over to Ivan the Terrible's side and were granted lands in return.
As for the origins of the names of Mordva settlements, these most often bear the names of their first settlers. In 16th-century documents there is mention of Semyon Atingeyev, who lived in Zalessye on the Poyka River. He was the founder of the village of Atingeyevo.
In the Arzamas manorial acts of 1587, the Mordva village of Yermenzeyenki (from the ancient Mordva name Yermenza) is mentioned for the first time. In 1675 the village of Yermenzeyenki was given to the merchant Semyon Sverchkov for potash works. The Mordva left the area, and in place of the former Mordva village a Russian settlement arose, which on 18th-century maps is already marked as Tolsky Maydan. The village's name reflects the character of its economic activity — potash production.
Another group of Mordva villages bore the names of the urochishche where they were located: Chirgushi (slanted glade), Pichingyushi (pine glade), Beryozovka. This village arose at the beginning of the 17th century. The first settlers here were three Mordva households with six male and an equal number of female souls who had moved out from the village of Novoye Ivantsevo.
The village of Ivantsevo is first mentioned in land-use documents of 1595 under the name Ivantsevo Arzhemanova, in connection with a boundary dispute with the village of Ulyanovo. The residents of Ivantsevo complained about neighboring landowners "Pan Ulyan and the Kologrivovs, who have violated the boundary and are plowing up their land and calling it their own." The cadastral books of the 16th century mention a certain Ivashka Lukoyanov, who settled in the upper reaches of the Tyosha and built a mill — "a Russian wheel." He was the founder of the small village of Lukoyanovo. The fact that the village of Lukoyanovo indeed took its name from the first settler is supported by the persistence of that surname in the region over several decades.
Thus, a payment book from the early 17th century mentions the collection of quitrent from a peasant named Oleshka Lukoyanov: "From Oleshka Lukoyanov, from the smithy attached to Panfilova's smithy, a quitrent of a grivna, and said money for the present year (1629 — Ed.) has been collected in full" (Nizhny Novgorod Book of Payments of All Money Duties, Quitrent Collections and Arrears). In the mid-17th century, a register of sales of state liquor notes that "from the 1st of June to the 1st of July, Fyodor Lukoyanov was sold 10 pails." Earlier, in 1657, Semyon Lukoyanov had been engaged in selling liquor in taverns before Fyodor (Smirnov M. Nizhny Novgorod State Taverns and Drinking Houses of the 17th Century. 1913).
At first the small village of Lukoyanovo was part of the Buturlin estate, then passed from hand to hand among various landowners, and by the 18th century the selo of Lukoyanov was already among the state-managed economic villages.
The government of the first Romanov tsars continued to distribute land to landowners throughout the 17th century. For instance, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich granted the powerful landowner Morozov several thousand desyatinas in the future Lukoyanov uyezd, on which "Lithuanians" were settled. The Russian population "christened" the new settlers "budaki." For a long time the origins of the Lukoyanov "budaki," who differed from others not only in dialect but also in dress, remained a mystery to many. The answer was found only in 1835 by V. I. Dal and P. I. Melnikov. From the peculiarities of their speech, Dal identified them as Menzelinsk "szlachta" (gentry). He asked Melnikov to search the archives. "The archives," writes P. I. Melnikov, "were then in many hands." Nevertheless, he found confirmation of Dal's hypothesis. In the 17th century, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, "Lithuanians" — that is, essentially Belarusians — were settled in Lukoyanov uyezd, just as they were in Menzelinsk (Tataria) (Melnikov A. P. Nizhny Novgorod and Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. 1896. P. 86). Later these lands were held by major landowners of the uyezd: Razumovsky, Kochubei, and Lubyanovsky. Today three settlements with descendants of Belarusians remain on the territory of our district: Yelfimovo, Krasnaya Polyana, and the settlement of Beletsky.
The settlement of the district's territory proceeded unevenly. Its central (forest-steppe) part was settled earlier, in the 16th through 18th centuries, whereas the forested depths of the Alatyr zone (the southern part of the district) were settled only in the second half of the 19th century. It was then that settlements such as Orlovka, Butskoye, Pandas, Nikolay Dar, Volchikha, Skopinka, and others appeared. They were populated by migrants from various villages of Oryol, Tambov, Penza, Novgorod, Ryazan, and other governorates. In the far south, beyond the Alatyr, there had long existed the sole Moksha Mordva village of Pechi. In 1915 the village of Sanki separated from it (sana — river).
At present there are 14 Mordva villages on the territory of Lukoyanovskiy District. Erzya villages are located in two groups. In the eastern part of the district these are Chirgushi, Pichingyushi, Novosyolki, Krapivka, and Keldyushevo. In the southwestern part lie Ivantsevo, Shandrovo, Atingeyevo, Messingovka, Saldamanovo, Nikolayevka, and separately, in the northern part of the district, Beryozovka. The Moksha villages of Pechi and Sanki are located in the south. The remaining 52 settlements are Russian. The particular pattern of the district's settlement is reflected not only in the ethnic composition of the population but also in the rich variety of dialects and speech patterns, customs, habits, and even the characters of the inhabitants of different villages. Consider the diversity of dialects alone — it is rare for any two neighboring villages to share the same one. There are several villages whose inhabitants strongly "okan" (pronounce the unstressed "o") in the Nizhny Novgorod manner: Nekhoroshevo, Kryukovka, Malaya Polyana. The residents of Volchikha have an "akan" (Moscow-style) dialect; the Lopatino residents have a hard "ch"; the residents of Gavrilovo have a sing-song manner of speech. The residents of Peremchalki speak correct literary Russian; the residents of Skopinka have soft verb endings. In the speech of the residents of Nikulino and Kudeyarovo, "ch" is replaced by "ts." Many Belarusian words and pronunciation features have been preserved in the speech of the residents of Yelfimovo and Krasnaya Polyana.
The inhabitants of our villages also differ in temperament. The residents of Peremchalki are good-natured, straightforward, and tactful; the residents of Bolshiye Ari are businesslike and serious; the Lopatino residents are hardworking and enterprising; the residents of Volchikha are modest, hospitable, and very musical; the Yelfimovo residents are endlessly patient and undemanding in everyday life and work. The residents of the village of Ivantsevo are distinguished by a strongly developed sense of personal dignity.
Despite the diverse ethnic composition of the population of our region, all its inhabitants have been united by the Lukoyanov land. Over centuries of shared history, a natural coming-together of peoples took place. They were bound not only by a common territory but also by economic ties. The celebrated tailors of Chirgushi "clothed" the entire surrounding area; the weavers of Lopatino supplied hand-woven linen cloth — "kletki" (a colorful homespun checkered fabric) — not only to their own district's population but also to the neighboring Boldinsky and Shatkovsky districts. The carpenters of Elfimovo and Neverovo built hundreds of houses in all the surrounding villages. Seventy-five families of coopers from Kudeyarovo supplied the entire uyezd with wooden buckets (badi). The craftsmen of Poya who made sleighs kept the uyezd supplied with sleds. A good half of the uyezd used rope twisted by the inhabitants of Malaya Lukanovka. The whole uyezd rode on carts fitted with wheels made in Silino, while the charcoal-burners of Pecheny delivered charcoal to every smithy in the area. The residents of the uyezd were also united by their shared struggle against oppressors. Both the Russian and the Mordva populations actively took part in the peasant wars of Stepan Razin and Yemelyan Pugachev, and in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. And the punishments meted out by the tsarist government for that participation were the same for all. In the registers recording the erection in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of "wheels and gallows" (gibbets) — on which peasants who had taken part in the popular movement under Yemelyan Pugachev's leadership were executed — Russian and Mordva villages were listed side by side.
Russian-Mordva relations in the region developed differently at different social levels. In order to accelerate the Christianization of the Mordva, the Orthodox Church tried to set people of different nations against one another. The Church forbade Russians from associating with Mordva "heathens." But ordinary people had nothing to divide. The position of different segments of the population on the national question found vivid expression in a folk proverb recorded by the young N. A. Dobrolyubov in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate: "To keep company with boyars is honorable, with priests is holy, but with the Mordva — though it be a sin — is better than all." "A sin" represents the Church's position, while "better than all" represents the position of ordinary people. But the attempt to prevent the two peoples from drawing closer together was unsuccessful. As the Bishop of Nizhny Novgorod and Alatyr, Dmitry, reported to the Most Holy Governing Synod on 16 May 1743, "unlearned Christians [peasants] come in company to their [the Mordva's] devilish games and partake of their vile sacrifices, drinking and eating together with them" (Veselovsky S. B. Arzamas Landed Acts. 1918. P. 323).
Thus, the population of Lukoyanovsky District was formed from the indigenous Mordva population and Russian and Belarusian settlers gathered from various parts of the Russian state. This process was lengthy, contradictory, and complex — and perhaps it is precisely in these distinctive features that the source lies of the Lukoyanov land's generosity in producing interesting, passionate, original, and talented people.
== Industry ==
Lukoyanovsky District is home to 11 industrial enterprises:
- food industry — processing of milk and dairy products, wholesale and retail trade of own products;
- mechanical engineering and metalworking — production of rolling bearings;
- woodworking industry — timber harvesting, sawmilling, wood processing;
- automotive industry — produces mufflers for GAZ-33021, GAZ-53, UAZ-41512, UAZ-4137, UAZ-3303, and trailers for UAZ vehicles;
- industry — repair of assemblies and components, construction and installation work, transport services;
- printing industry — production of blank forms;
- institution UZ 62/20 — mechanical engineering and metalworking — produces assemblies and parts for motor vehicles, spare blades for combine headers, and transformation mechanisms;
- light industry — manufacture of professional and specialized clothing;
- glass industry — production of glass bottles;
- food industry — bread production.