The residential building complex at Novaya Street (houses no. 16, 16A, and 18/22) is a group of wooden residential structures in the historic Zapochaine quarter, within the boundaries of Korolenko Street, in the block of the Church of the Three Hierarchs. The buildings hold the status of a newly identified cultural heritage site and are not subject to demolition.[2]
Heritage Protection Status and Threats
The complex was registered as a newly identified cultural heritage site (CHS). As of 2020, the procedure for determining the historical value of the structures had not been completed: a specialist in Crimean studies, Aleksandr Khlivnyuk — who, according to available information, had never visited Nizhny Novgorod — conducted a state historical and cultural assessment and concluded that including the buildings in the CHS register was inadvisable. Following public consultations, the assessment report was sent back for revision; by mid-July 2020, the revised conclusion had not been submitted to State Heritage Protection Authority of the Nizhny Novgorod Region. Upon receiving it, the authority intended to re-publish the report for a public consultation period of 15 working days, after which a final decision on whether to include or exclude the site from the register was to be made.[2]
In August 2020, heritage preservation activists announced their intention to post guards near the three buildings to protect them from physical damage. The leader of the SpasGrad movement, Anna Davydova, an expert of the Russian Ministry of Culture, publicly warned of the risk of arson. In her assessment, the interest in demolishing the historic structures may have been connected to the fact that as far back as 2014 the Nizhny Novgorod city administration had entered into a development agreement with LLC Fregat for this territory: the company planned to construct a consumer services facility with an underground car park within the boundaries of Novaya and Korolenko streets, but the project was blocked by the prohibition on demolishing structures whose historical value assessment remained incomplete.[2]
Adjacent Construction
The adjacent plot of 3.8 hectares within the boundaries of Gorky, Ilyinskaya, and Novaya streets was allocated for the Simfoniya Nizhnego residential complex by Stolitsa Nizhniy (development company). According to an order issued by Ministry of Urban Development and Agglomeration Development of Nizhny Novgorod Region on 1 August 2022 amending the territory planning and land surveying project, the second and third construction phases provide for two multi-apartment buildings ranging from 5 to 9 storeys in height, with integrated public-use spaces and underground car parks. The concept envisages a gradual reduction in building height toward the intersection of Novaya and Ilyinskaya streets — from 9 down to 4–5 storeys — in keeping with the scale of Zapochaine's historic urban environment.[1]