Sergach is a city and the administrative center of Sergachsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Region. It is the only city located on the Pyana River, and can therefore rightfully be called the capital of the Pripyanye region. Sergach is situated 150 km from Nizhny Novgorod.
History
In the summer of 1377, in the vicinity of what would become the city (8 km to the southeast), at the confluence of the Para River and the Pyana River, the ill-fated Battle of the Pyana took place. In the first half of the 17th century, a few smoke-blackened cottages stood on the high bank of a shallow tributary of the Pyana, inhabited by people who farmed the land and produced potash. According to legend, a chapel dedicated to Sergius of Radonezh was originally erected on the site of the small village. It was from this chapel that the village took its name — it was called Sergeyevka or Sergiyevka. Another legend holds that the city was named after its first settler, Serga, so nicknamed because he wore an earring (serga) in his ear. The earliest documentary references to Sergach as a village date to 1649 (in a decree of the boyar Boris Ivanovich Morozov). From that time onward, Sergach appears in documents quite frequently, referred to variously as a village or a pochinok (a newly established settlement). Records have survived of Sergach residents taking part in the bands of Stenka Razin and Yemelyan Pugachev.
In 1779 the settlement was granted town status, and on 16 August 1781 the coat of arms of Sergach was approved: a black bear on a golden field, signifying that "beasts of that kind are plentiful in the environs of the city."
At one time Sergach was indeed renowned for its cheap potash, sturdy bast shoes, and trained bears. The inhabitants of more than 30 villages in the district and of the city itself trained bears and traveled with them throughout the country — and sometimes beyond its borders, to Poland, Bohemia, Germany, France, and Italy. The trained bears could dance to a drum and a barrel organ, walk on their hind legs and beg for alms, perform "drills" with a wooden musket, act out how boys steal peas, and mimic a drunken merchant staggering through a market. According to legend, during the Patriotic War of 1812 a review of bear "regiments" trained to "fight" Napoleon's army was held in Sergach on the Market Square. Bears also "practiced medicine": superstitious old men and women sought a bear's help to rid themselves of their ailments. To this end, the patient would lie on the ground and the bear would lie belly-down on top of him, spreading its paws wide. Nekrasov described this method of treatment in his poem "Frost, the Red-Nosed." Bear-keeping as a trade survived into the early 20th century.
In the craft of bast-shoe making, the people of Sergach had no rivals. The weaving of this quintessentially Russian footwear was practiced by young and old, men and women alike. The range of products was quite varied: "Chuvash" bast shoes, straight-lasted for a woman's foot and curved-lasted for a man's; birch-bark slip-ons; rope "whisperers"; and hemp-fiber "obory" (laces). The inhabitants of Sergach and the surrounding villages sent their wares by the cartload to local markets and to the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka.
Origin of the Name
According to one version, Sergach received its name from the first settler of these parts, a man named Sergiy, who wore an earring (serga) in his ear. Even Dal has the line: "Seryozha Sergach, pierce an ear!" And supposedly hunters from Nizhny Novgorod would visit this Sergiy, who entertained them with trained bears.
There is also a view that the name Sergach is of Mordva origin: on the bank of a forest stream lived a Mordva woman with her beloved son Sergas, a man skilled at everything. They lived in comfort, gathering wild honey (practicing beekeeping), hunting wild animals, and catching fish. The area was favored by beavers: "some with velvet-black fur, others touched as if with gold." Those pelts were used for the hats and collars of princes and boyars. One day Sergas set out in a boat along the stream, and the boat capsized. He drowned. His poor mother dissolved in bitter tears and began to wail. The old woman started imploring the river to have mercy and return her son Sergas to her. For three days she sat by the water, pleading and entreating. Her hair turned white with grief, her eyes were cried dry… And then a miracle occurred: all the water in an instant sank into the sand, and the riverbed lay bare. The mother ran along the dry channel crying: "My son, Sergas, where are you?" She ran all the way to the Pyana River, into which the stream flowed. She examined every snag, every hollow. But she did not find Sergas. Then her white hair scattered in the wind, her eyes blazed with fury… And the mother roared with a wild animal's voice: "Be cursed, river! You took my son — then take me too!" At that moment, in the direction of the setting sun, black storm clouds instantly gathered, lightning struck, thunder rolled, and the earth trembled with fury. And the wretched mother was swallowed with a roar by the abyss… From that time the stream was called Sergas, and later, in the Russian manner, Sergachka. The city of Sergach took its name from that stream.
There is also a version attributing the name of Sergach to Turkic origins: many sources maintain that various Tatar tribes formerly inhabited the Sergach area. They were known as Mishar Tatars (the ancestors of the many Tatars who still live in these parts and the surrounding area today). In Tatar, Saryagach — a name very close in sound to Sergach — means "yellow tree." On the southern slope of the hill in the center of Sergach, trees still grow poorly to this day. The reason is the shallow bedrock, which prevents the roots of large trees from developing properly. As a result, the leaves on these trees turn yellow in the height of summer.
Yet another version: long ago, near the site of the old public bathhouse in the city (on the slope from the district Sergach hospital down to the pond near the bridge over the Sergachka River, which was called Mukhin Bridge), there stood a wooden chapel dedicated to the Venerable Russian saint Sergius of Radonezh. At this spot there supposedly once was a holy spring. Indeed, to this day water seeps here year-round, flowing down into Mukhin Pond. According to this version, it was precisely this chapel that gave its name to the settlement that formed here.
Supporting this version is the fact that in Sergach, to this day, the patronal feast known as "Seryov Day" — in honor of the Venerable Sergius of Radonezh — is observed and celebrated.