Navashinskiy District is one of the districts of Nizhny Novgorod Region, bordering the Vyksunsky District, Kulebakskiy District, Arzamassky District, and Vachsky District Districts of Nizhny Novgorod Region and the Muromsky District of Vladimir Region.
The administrative center is the town of Navashino.
History of the District
The earliest written records of settlements in our district, dating to 1629–30, show us how the economic and cultural life of our land evolved. The development of trade, crafts, and agriculture was closely tied to the growth of the Moscow Principality. The most important trade, river, and overland routes of the time passed through our town. This proved decisive as the Urals and Siberia were opened up and developed. Through what was then the village of Lipnya ran the postal Arzamas road, formerly the Siberian Tract, along which — before the Nizhny Novgorod highway was built and the railways of Russia were laid — heavy transports of nuggets and panned gold and silver from the Ural mines made their way to both capitals and their mints. The primitive trades of that era (tar-making, pitch-boiling, charcoal-burning, sheepskin-dressing, cart-making, boat-building, and others), once undeniably profitable and necessary, outlived their usefulness with the development of rail transport. The cultural and economic experience accumulated during that period, together with the entrepreneurial spirit of the people, gave impetus to the next stage of development of our town and district.
In October 1907, a shipbuilding yard was laid down on the right bank of the Oka River in its old channel. In 1912, the Navashino station of the Moscow–Kazan Railway was built, running through the settlement of Mordovshchik. Navashinskiy District, formerly known as Mordovshchikovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Region, was established in accordance with a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR dated 29 August 1944, at the time of the creation of Vladimir Region. It was an agricultural district with the sole industrial enterprise of the time being the Mordovshchikovsky shipyard, which brought the district its wide renown. In 1908, the first oil barge, Yekaterina Velikaya, was built at the Mordovshchikovsky shipyard. And in 1935, for the first time not only in the USSR but in the world, a large-tonnage fully welded vessel was built — the oil barge Komsomolka Sudoplatova, with a carrying capacity of 6,000 tonnes. The rapid development of the plant in the postwar years, its reconstruction, and the construction of the world's largest river giants of the Volga–Don type gave a powerful stimulus to the district's development. 1955 was the year construction of a building materials plant began. From that point on, full-scale improvement of the town commenced. Over the following 20 years, the town was transformed into a modern district center. Bricks from the plant went not only toward building Navashino, but were also sent to Vyksa, Kulebaki, Arzamas, Murom, and other districts of Gorky Region. On 23 December 1957, the district center — the workers' settlement of Mordovshchikovo — became a town of district subordination and was renamed Navashino, after the eponymous Navashino station of the Moscow–Kazan Railway.