The Governor's Palace, the Military Governor's Palace, later known as the Governor's House or the House of the Governor — the historic residence of the ruler of the Nizhny Novgorod Region of the Russian Empire. It is located in the Kremlin, at its northern end.
Today the building of the Governor's House is home to the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum.
History
The history of the governor-general's palace in the Kremlin is connected with the names of famous historical figures. Emperor Nicholas I personally sketched the layout plan for the governor's house with its imperial apartments and chapel, and during his visit to Russia the palace was visited by the French writer Alexandre Dumas père.
According to the Emperor's Plan
In the first half of the 19th century, Nizhny Novgorod underwent large-scale urban redevelopment. On 30 June 1833, under the direction of provincial architect I. E. Yefimov, a Construction Commission was established, one of whose goals was to improve transport links between the Upper Town of Nizhny Novgorod and the trade fair that had been operating for several decades in the Zarechka part of the city. In connection with this, the Kremlin also underwent a thorough redesign. On its territory, residential buildings (28 houses), the remains of the ancient metropolitan residence, and the old Church of the Holy Spirit Monastery began to be actively demolished. New plans were drawn up for the military governor's house with its outbuildings, the ensemble of which also included a guardhouse corps (quarters for the military guard), an arsenal, and a public garden. The Ivanovskiy Descent, which connected the Upper and Lower posads and divided the Kremlin in two, was decided to be closed to traffic. A paved Zelensky Descent was to be laid bypassing the Kremlin walls, and a boulevard was to be arranged on the site of the approximately 130 residential buildings surrounding the Kremlin.
Russian Emperor Nicholas I, who arrived in Nizhny Novgorod in 1834, approved these projects, personally sketched the layout plan for the governor's house with its imperial apartments and chapel, and instructed Nizhny Novgorod Governor-General M. P. Buturlin (who had become famous in his day for the curious order "On Measures Against Fires" — which periodically devastated Nizhny — that among other things required homeowners to "notify the police of a fire two hours before it occurs") to reorganize the provincial Construction Commission into a Construction Committee for the Development of the City of Nizhny Novgorod, with an expanded staff. It was headed by engineer-colonel P. D. Gotman, with V. P. Stremoukhov appointed as his deputy. The large-scale works were funded from the state treasury as well as through additional levies on trade fair commerce.
The urban development plans were sent to Saint Petersburg for review in 1836. The capital's authorities, despite a number of clarifications and requests for revision, permitted work to begin immediately. The transformations of 1834–1839 became the most significant in the centuries-long history of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin.
A Palace Like a Soldier
As early as the 17th century, all the official administrative offices were located in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin — yet the military governor had no residence there until 1841.
The design of the governor's palace, created by architects Gotman and Yefimov on the orders of Nicholas I, was approved on 19 April 1835. (It should be noted that some modern researchers, citing the latest revised findings, believe the palace was designed by architect I. I. Charlemagne.) Supervision of the construction work was carried out by architect A. L. Leer. In 1837 the foundations were laid and the walls were raised in rough form. But a year later Leer came into conflict with Governor Buturlin and was removed from the project. Supervision of the works was continued in his place by architects A. I. Sheffer and A. E. Turmyshev; the interior finishing was carried out by a contractor — a Tver coachman, I. T. Dubitsky — while the cabinetmaker N. E. Volkov furnished the interiors. At the end of 1841, word reached Saint Petersburg from Nizhny Novgorod that construction had been completed.
However, just five years later the building, erected on the edge of the Kremlin hill's escarpment, was in need of repair: it had sustained damage due to soil subsidence on the slope. In 1846, engineer A. I. Delvig — known as the builder of the city's first water supply system and fountain — used concrete for the first time in the construction history of Nizhny Novgorod when filling cracks in the palace's foundations and cellars. Major repairs were later carried out in 1885 and 1894–1896, when architect N. I. Ivanov designed a metal canopy on cast-iron columns for the main entrance and oval carriage ramps for the approaches.
Some researchers consider that the palace, designed in keeping with the tastes of Nicholas I, turned out to be — even by 19th-century standards — "dry and drilled, like a soldier on parade." Originally, the first floor housed the governor's reception rooms, the second floor contained imperial apartments for use during royal visits, and the third floor held the private quarters of the governor's family. The palace is currently listed as a cultural heritage site of federal significance.
Visited by Both Pushkin and Dumas
The first to take up residence in the new palace was Governor-General Buturlin, who was visited by A. S. Pushkin during the latter's two-day visit to Nizhny Novgorod in 1833. It should be said that Pushkin stayed at Buturlin's old palace on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, while in the Kremlin he visited the archive.
The military governor's palace is associated with the names of many notable figures: the Decembrists A. N. Muravyov and I. A. Annenkov, as well as the French novelist Alexandre Dumas père, who was given a reception there in 1858. Dumas père had written the novel The Fencing Master 18 years before his visit to Nizhny Novgorod. The story of the love between Decembrist Ivan Annenkov and the Parisian Pauline Gebl had been told to him by his friend Augustin Grisier, who had returned from Saint Petersburg. The prototypes of the novel's characters, upon returning from exile, lived in Nizhny Novgorod, where their meeting with the French writer took place.
In the 1860s, the renowned photographer A. O. Karelin and architect L. V. Dal opened the first public art school in Nizhny Novgorod in one of the rooms of the governor's palace. The building also contained a private chapel, in which Nicholas II prayed during his visit to Nizhny Novgorod in 1912.
When the Soviet republic replaced tsarist rule, the stucco cherubs in the former governor's palace were replaced by alabaster hammers and sickles; the ballroom was divided in two and fitted out with offices and a conference hall. After the revolution, the building housed the Provincial Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), then the party Regional Committee and the city committee of the Komsomol, while the ground floor held a museum of the history of the regional party organization.
Since 1992, the palace has housed the collections of the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum, which is considered one of the oldest in Russia. Its opening, which took place on 25 June 1896 in the Dmitrievskaya Tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin of the Kremlin, coincided with the 16th All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition held in Nizhny Novgorod. Before the revolution the museum was under the patronage of the Imperial Academy of Arts and was augmented through its donations and private gifts; under the new authorities it was expanded using nationalized noble collections. Today the museum's collection numbers more than 12,000 exhibits, including monuments of world significance: icons from the 14th–17th centuries, works by Russian painters of the 17th–20th centuries, and masterpieces of Western European and Eastern art.
The Public Kremlin Garden
Following the design and construction of the governor's palace, architects Yefimov and Gotman in 1834 drew up a plan for a Kremlin garden on the site of the former Church of the Holy Spirit Monastery. The stone church of that monastery was first transferred to the Old Believer community of Nizhny Novgorod, and in 1840 was converted into a private chapel of the governor's house. In the 20th century the church was destroyed.
Since the Kremlin hill is riddled with underground springs, laying out a public garden along its slopes required specialist expertise. On 17 August 1836, the imperial landscape gardener Peltzel — who at the time was designing the Alexandrovsky Garden near the Moscow Kremlin and the Alexandria park in Peterhof — was dispatched to Nizhny Novgorod. In spring 1837, Peltzel's assistants I. Svoboda and F. Murashkin arrived in Nizhny Novgorod to oversee the day-to-day work. Nevertheless, the very next year a landslide occurred on the newly laid paths of the Kremlin garden. The task of stabilizing the ground was assigned to engineer D. A. Litvinov. The springs were channeled into a collector; the landslide-prone areas were reinforced with piles. In 1839 poplars, linden trees, maples, rowans, oaks, elms, ash trees, birches, and berry shrubs were planted here. But of the 6,043 saplings only 3,743 had taken root by the following year, and of the 8,502 shrubs only 6,902 survived.
Repeated supplementary plantings were carried out in the 1840s.
Today, more than a century and a half later, the public Kremlin garden is in a neglected state.