"Pokrovka", Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, colloquially Pokra, Sverdlovka) — the main street of Nizhny Novgorod, the "Nizhny Novgorod Arbat" or "Broadway" (depending on where the person came from). Considered pedestrian. Along with Rozhdestvenskaya, Pokrovka is the most important street shaping the appearance of Historic Center of Nizhny Novgorod.
The Essence of the Phenomenon
Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street (in the Soviet period — Sverdlov Street) is one of the oldest streets in Nizhny Novgorod. The street, named after the Pokrovskaya Church that once stood here, connects two central squares of the city – Minin Square (formerly Blagoveshchenskaya), and Lyadov Square (formerly Monastyrskaya).
Earlier, the houses of the Nizhny Novgorod nobility were located here. Today the street abounds in shops and restaurants, and here one can also buy the works of Nizhny Novgorod craftsmen.
History
The direction of Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street was set by the road to Moscow that had passed through here since medieval times. According to the 1621-1622 land register of Nizhny Novgorod, this road within the city bore the name "Nikolskaya Bolshaya Street." It led to the Nikolskie Gates of the tower of the New Ostrog, built in the early 17th century. The tower stood at what is now the intersection of Bolshaya Pokrovskaya and Oktyabrskaya Street (formerly Dvoryanskaya) streets. The present-day direction of Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, aligned toward the Dmitrievskaya Tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin of the The Kremlin, was set by the city's first regular plan of 1770, but the street was laid out in its present form only by the early 1790s. The 1799 plan of Nizhny Novgorod shows that by this time Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street was already the main planning element of the surrounding area. Apart from the Nikolskaya Verkhneposadskaya Church, all the other buildings on the street were made of wood. For example, wooden buildings of the Nizhny Novgorod vice-governor's estate once stood on the site of today's Theater Square. From the late 18th to the early 19th century, stone houses began to be built on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya. Among the earliest stone buildings to survive to this day is the Kostromin house (house No. 4), later reconstructed. By the early 1850s, most residential and administrative buildings were made of stone. Classicism was the predominant architectural style. The most striking building in this style was the Noble Assembly building, built at the intersection of Bolshaya Pokrovskaya and Dvoryanskaya streets (1826, architect Yefimov). Also built in the classicist style were the Dobrolyubov family estate houses, erected in 1838-1839 to a design by Kiesewetter.
Architecture and Landmarks
Today the pedestrian street has turned into a veritable museum. Paved with cobblestones and dotted with cafés and restaurants, the street is opened by a statue of a city constable, inviting tourists to marvel at the beauty of the old city. A little further along Pokra, as it is called by Residents of Nizhny Novgorod, stand a photographer photographing a dog, a shoeshine woman, a lady with her gentleman, a fashionable lady before a mirror, a doorman, a violinist. Near the "Artistic Crafts" shop, a governess sits on a bench with a boy, a friendly Nizhny Novgorod merchant invites passers-by to stroll along the pedestrian street, and near the House of Communications stands a postman on a bicycle.
Among the street's main landmarks are the Maxim Gorky Nizhny Novgorod Academic Drama Theatre and the State Bank.