The Volga Steamship Company was a joint-stock shipping company founded in 1910 and nationalized in 1918. The company's board was headquartered in Nizhny Novgorod; it operated on the Volga, the Ob, the Caspian Sea, and their tributaries. Two buildings associated with the company have survived in the Historic Center of Nizhny Novgorod to this day.[1]

History of the Company

The Volga Steamship Company was founded in 1910 through the merger of four companies: the enterprises of Nizhny Novgorod merchants Yakov Chernonyobov and Dmitry Sirotkin (oil-tanker fleet), and the Astrakhan firms of Ivan Skripinsky and Ivan Lbov (fishing and steamship operations).[1] The company was engaged in oil trading and the transportation of cargo and passengers. Dmitry Sirotkin was elected managing director.[1] Within two years, the company's capital had doubled. In 1912, a machine-building plant called Nizhegorodsky Teplokhod ("Nizhny Novgorod Motorship") was established across from Nizhny Novgorod; it manufactured oil-tanker barges and motorized tugboats.[1] By 1914, the company owned more than forty motor tugboats and steamships and one hundred and fifty barges.[1] In 1918, the company was nationalized.[1]

The Board Building on Minin Square

A site at the corner of the Upper Volga Embankment and Minin and Pozharsky Square was selected for the company's board offices in Nizhny Novgorod. In 1912, Dmitry Sirotkin purchased the urban estate of retired Major N. A. Rudolf that stood there; the old stone house along with all its outbuildings was demolished to make way for new construction.[1] In October 1913, the newspaper Nizhegorodsky Listok reported that a "massive stone building" was being erected at the corner of the Otkos, across from the summer premises of the Commercial Club, and would house the offices of the Volga, Teplokhod, and Torf companies.[1]

The building was constructed between 1913 and 1914 under the supervision of architect Alexey Poltanov.[1] The designer of the project has not been established: newspapers from the construction period mentioned that Vladimir Tseidler had been invited as architect; subsequently, the Vesnin brothers were put forward as possible authors, but this has not been confirmed by documentary evidence.[1][2] The main construction work was completed by autumn 1914; due to the outbreak of the First World War, the still-unfinished building was given over to a city field hospital in November of that year.[1]

The building is recognized as one of the largest monuments of Russian Neo-Classicism of the early twentieth century in the built environment of Nizhny Novgorod, and is protected as a cultural heritage site of the peoples of the Russian Federation at the regional level (reg. no. 521510205120005).[1]

Subsequent History of the Buildings

From 1930, the board building on Minin and Pozharsky Square was occupied by the Gorky Medical Institute.[1][2] Among its graduates were physicians P. K. Blokhin, Blokhin, Nikolai Trapeznikov, and Boris Korolev. A memorial plaque on the building commemorates the renowned Soviet physiologist Pyotr Anokhin.[1] The building is currently occupied by the Privolzhsky Research Medical University.[1]

Separately preserved on Minin and Pozharsky Square is the office building of the Volga Steamship Company, constructed in 1916. This building subsequently also became part of the medical institute complex (now the Nizhny Novgorod State Medical Academy).[1]

Links

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (ru) — Building of the Board of the Volga Steamship Company
  2. book-hall.ru — Nizhny Novgorod Masterpiece of the Vesnin Brothers / Centralized Library System of Kanavinsky District