Lyskovo — a city and the administrative center of Lyskovsky District, Nizhny Novgorod Region, situated in a scenic location on the right bank of the Volga River (Cheboksary Reservoir), 90 km from Nizhny Novgorod, 60 km northwest of the Sergach railway station, and 90 km southeast of Nizhny Novgorod.
There is a river wharf.
From the 18th century, the village of Lyskovo was one of the largest grain-trading centers in the Russian Empire. Cottage industries flourished: tools, anchors, bells, buttons, needlework goods, caskets with secret locks, and padlocks were all produced here. In 1925, Lyskovo was granted town status.
In antiquity: Sundovit (Mordva).
History
Lyskovo is first mentioned in the chronicles in 1410. However, the site where it stands was settled long before that, as evidenced by the remains of ancient earthworks and moats on Olenyaya Gora (Deer Hill). The original settlement stood on a high promontory beyond the Sundovik, somewhat to the west of the present-day city. It was a Russo-Mordva settlement called Sundovit. Archaeological excavations date its founding to no later than the 12th – early 13th centuries. Judging by the nature of the finds, the settlement suffered a severe fire — a conclusion indirectly supported by historical sources as well.
In 1367, the Sundovit area was ravaged by the Tatar khan Bulat-Temir, and the settlement itself was plundered and burned. After this, the Suzdal-Nizhny Novgorod princes, seeking to protect the population from the constant threat of Tatar invasion, built a fortress on Olenyaya Gora. An earthen rampart was raised in the shape of a quadrilateral, about 3 m high and 2,250 m in perimeter. Along it stood a wooden wall — "a stockade of pine and oak" — some 4–5 m high, with 10 wooden towers. The fortress itself, reinforced by the natural slope of the hill, the Sundovik River to the east and south, and the Volga to the north, constituted a formidable defensive structure for its time. Until the mid-17th century, a military garrison was stationed within the fortress walls. In 1411 the fortress was baptized in battle and successfully repelled a Tatar attack.
Difficulties with the water supply led to the situation where, by the late 16th – early 17th century, the bulk of the population was already living outside the fortress, beyond the Sundovik River, on the site of present-day Lyskovo.
In the 17th century, Lyskovo grew into a substantial settlement and the center of a large volost. More than half its population consisted of craftsmen, cottage-industry workers, and petty traders. The decisive factor in Lyskovo's economic development was the yarmarka (trade fair) that arose on the left bank of the Volga River at the walls of the Makaryev Monastery — the Makaryev Fair — which soon became a pan-Russian trading event.
The fair was officially established in 1641 and continued for more than a century and a half, until 1816, when all 29 trading halls housing more than 300 shops, the trading arcade, the exchange, 8 taverns, food stalls, and other fairground structures were destroyed by fire, after which the fair was relocated to Nizhny Novgorod.
Thanks to its favorable position on the road from Moscow to Kazan, its proximity to the Volga River, and its access to grain-producing regions, Lyskovo became one of the largest grain-trading centers in Russia, second only to the Rybinsk wharf in the volume of grain shipped. Thousands of convoys laden with grain made their way here along the major overland roads connecting the city with the surrounding uyezds of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate as well as from Tambov, Penza, Simbirsk, and Kazan Governorates. As a result, more than 2 million puds of grain — wheat, rye, barley, and oats — were concentrated in Lyskovo. The grain was poured into enormous log warehouses built on tall pilings, known as "chalye ambary." In spring, during the Volga floods, barges were brought up to these warehouses, loaded with grain, and dispatched to Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Rybinsk, and onward to St. Petersburg. A substantial quantity of grain was processed on the spot: in and around Lyskovo there were 28 water mills and 166 windmills. Lyskovo flour and bread were renowned far beyond the boundaries of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. In the second half of the 19th century, with the expansion of the railway network, the center of the grain trade shifted from Lyskovo to Nizhny Novgorod and Rybinsk.
Lyskovo was known as a center of varied cottage industries. Craftsmen of more than thirty trades produced a wide range of goods. Blacksmiths forged horseshoes, hammers of various weights, ploughshares and coulters, and anchors for river vessels. Coppersmiths cast postal bells and trappings for horse harnesses. Large quantities of needlework goods were made — thimbles, iron and copper pins, rings, earrings, brooches and cufflinks, and copper buttons. Lyskovo masters crafted from iron the so-called "Persian caskets" — single- and double-bottomed, with decorative painting and secret locks — designed for storing money and valuables, along with many other products (cobblery, leatherwork, and pottery). All of these enjoyed steady demand at the Makaryev Fair and later the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka.
Until the mid-17th century, Lyskovo, as a crown village of the volost, was administered by special stewards who collected taxes and duties for the sovereign's treasury. Under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Lyskovo was granted to the major landowner and boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov. At the beginning of the 18th century it passed into the possession of the descendants of the Georgian royal family, who had settled in Russia.
A particularly lasting mark on the history of Lyskovo was left by Prince Georgy Alexandrovich Gruzinsky. He commissioned the construction of several churches that have survived to the present day: the Church of St. George the Victorious (1814), decorated by the Arzamas painting academician A.V. Stupin, and the Church of the Ascension (1830). The burial vault of the Gruzinsky princes was the Cathedral of the Transfiguration (17th century).
By the mid-19th century, Lyskovo had a population of around 6,000, with 926 houses, numerous inns, eateries and teahouses, trading stalls and small shops, 9 churches, a hospital, and several stone buildings erected by merchants.
In 1925, Lyskovo was granted town status. Artels of cobblers and tailors were established on the basis of existing cottage industries. In the premises of a small metallurgical plant that had belonged before the revolution to the merchant and industrialist I.I. Tarakanov, a manufacturing combine was organized. It produced iron trunks, repaired internal combustion engines, and cast various parts for agricultural machinery from cast iron. In 1923, a brewery was reopened after renovation. A small power station was also built.
During the Great Patriotic War, more than 2,000 Lyskovo residents were decorated with orders and medals for their valor in battle, and 6 were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. During the war, in 1941, the Lyskovo Electrotechnical Plant (LETZ) was founded to produce electrical equipment — it is now the city's largest enterprise.