Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, Nizhny Novgorod Otkos — a street in the historic part of Nizhny Novgorod with a panoramic view of the floodplain bank of the Volga River river, the Rowing Canal, the helipad of Robinson Restaurant, and the suburbs of the city of Bor.
Location
The embankment runs along the top of the Volga escarpment from Minin Square to Sennaya Square (from the Chkalov Monument to Valery Chkalov to the Ski Jump (nnov.ec)).
History
The Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, or Volzhsky Otkos (formerly the Volga Embankment, Verkhne-Volzhsky Otkos), stretches from Minin Square to Sennaya Square. It was designed in the 1830s–1840s. At that time the ravines cutting through the riverbank were filled in, the slopes were leveled and reinforced with turf, the Georgievsky Descent and Kazansky Descent (formerly Pechersky) descents down to the river were laid out, and Alexandrovsky Garden was laid out in the center of the escarpment.
It was constructed between 1834 and 1839 as part of the general urban-planning transformation of Nizhny Novgorod, together with the Otkos and Alexandrovsky Garden. Before that, the last street in this part of the city had been Zhukovskaya Street, and vegetable gardens with bathhouses and outbuildings descended along the hillside to the Volga bank. On the terraces of the mid-slope stood clusters of residential buildings belonging to Nizhny Novgorod's poor, including the ancient Panskaya Sloboda. Although attempts to regulate development along the future Otkos had been made earlier (under the plans of 1770, 1787, 1799, 1804, and 1824), it was only during the implementation of the "imperially mandated works" of the 1830s that the building lines of the present-day Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment were established, with a mandatory requirement that developers erect exclusively stone buildings there and to the "finest" façade designs. (Among the first to be built was the mansion of the industrialists Rukavishnikov.) In this way the city's "ceremonial face" as seen from the Volga was created.
The embankment design by I. Ye. Yefimov and P. D. Gotman was imperially approved in 1835. The works were carried out under the supervision of engineer A. I. Podnozov. By autumn 1839 the embankment surface had been leveled and paved with cobblestones. In the process, the structures of the ancient Proiskhozhdenskiy Monastery were demolished near the Georgievskaya Tower of the Kremlin (the site of the monument to Valery Chkalov), and a square was planned next to the Georgievskaya Church itself for the construction of a city theatre building (never realized).
The composition of the embankment was designed with the dominant element of the tiered domes of the Georgievskaya Church (1702) in mind (demolished during the construction of the Hotel Rossiya). From the mid-19th century the embankment became a favorite leisure spot for Nizhny Novgorod residents. Everyone who came to the city visited it.
Architecture
Several 19th- and early 20th-century mansions face the embankment, along with houses of the Soviet elite built in the architectural style of Stalinist pseudo-Empire.
Infrastructure
Among the dining establishments on the Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment are the restaurants Beer'ka, Minin and Pozharsky, Tiffany, and Houston Bar — all located near the intersection with Nesterova Street.
Today the embankment has become a gathering spot for the gilded youth, who parade their cars along this street, which is marked for drivers with a "No through traffic" sign.