Vorotynets — a settlement (posyolok), the administrative center of the eponymous district of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
It is located 154 km east of Nizhny Novgorod, on the federal highway M7 ("Volga"), which runs from Moscow to Kazan and then on to Ufa.
History
The Vorotynets Question
The founding date of Vorotynets — 1552 — has no documentary confirmation.
The official website of the Nizhny Novgorod Region government states that "Vorotynets was founded in 1552 following the third victorious campaign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible against Kazan." The founder of the settlement is considered to be Prince M. I. Vorotynsky. This date was also championed by the well-known Nizhny Novgorod historian and local historian, Professor N. F. Filatov: "For his military service, Ivan IV granted him (Vorotynsky — Auth.) a large hereditary estate in Nizhny Novgorod District, where Mikhail Ivanovich established his administrative and economic centers: Vorotynets, Knyaginino, Boyarintsevo, and others."
Documents discovered in the archives point to an entirely different founding date: around 1620.
In February 1569, Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky added a codicil to his testament, from which it follows that the government had confiscated his lands of the Odoevsko-Novosilskoye Principality (in the upper reaches of the Oka), giving him in return Starodub Ryapolovsky with its district (except for villages held by hereditary landowners), in Murom District the village of Moshok with its hamlets, in Nizhny Novgorod District the village of Knyainino, and in Vasilyegorodsky District the settlement of Fokino.
And in the Cadastral Book of the Zakudemsky Stan compiled by Dmitry Vasilyevich Lodygin, Vasily Ivanovich Poltev, and the clerk Dementiy Obraztsov in 1621–1623, in the description of the holdings of Prince Ivan Mikhaylovich Vorotynskiy, one finds the first documented mention of Vorotynets: "The village of Vorotynesk on a spring and on the Molvyazha stream, newly settled on forest land. And in the village a church of the Not-Made-by-Hands Image of the Savior, wooden, of the kletsky type, with a chapel of Aleksey the Man of God and a chapel of Prince Mikhail of Chernigov and his boyar Fyodor. And the icons and candles and vestments and church vessels and books and the bells on the bell tower are all the provision of the estate owner, boyar Prince Ivan Mikhaylovich."
Development in the 18th Century
At the end of the 17th century, the The Vorotynsky Princes died out, and Vorotynets was transferred to the palace administration. In 1700, Sovereign Peter I granted the village — which was part of the Barminsky volost — to his outstanding associate Count Fyodor Alekseyevich Golovin, Grand Admiral and first recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew.
While in the possession of the Golovins, Vorotynets was among the most developed and prosperous hereditary estates in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Around 1750, a tannery was established in the village, and in 1764 a linen factory with 200 looms was opened. The workforce — up to 400 people — was drawn from 14 villages in Nizhny Novgorod District and 2 villages in Semyonovsky District that belonged to the Golovins.
At the end of the 18th century, judging by the testimony of the General Land Survey, Vorotynets appeared as follows: "The village of Vorotynets, 11 versts from the district town, 260 households, population according to the fifth census of 1795: 601 men, 770 women. The property of Acting Privy Councillor Nikolai Nikolayevich Golovin.
The village is situated … on the main post road running from the town of Vasil to the town of Sergach. In the village there is a wooden church in the name of the Not-Made-by-Hands Image of the Savior with two chapels: the first on the south side in the name of Aleksiy the Man of God, the second on the north side in the name of the great martyr Prince Mikhail and his boyar Fyodor of Chernigov the wonderworkers, and a wooden manor house with two formal gardens containing fruit trees, and in the orangeries lemon, orange, peach, and citrus trees of various kinds.
There is a lord's linen factory with 25 looms and wooden trading stalls built for commerce. At this factory, canvas and Russian linen to the value of up to five thousand arshins a year are produced and used for the peasants' own needs, while a considerable quantity is sent for sale to the fair held in the town of Makaryev. In the village there are weekly markets every Monday in the small stalls that have been built, to which residents of various villages come with all manner of small goods.
The peasants are on quitrent (obrok) and make their living by farming. Women, in addition to field work, engage in handicrafts: they spin flax and wool, weave canvas and cloth for themselves and for sale."
Vorotynets under Pugachev
In the summer of 1774, the rebel forces of Yemelyan Pugachev approached the borders of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate and on 20 July entered Kurmysh, where they were received with celebration by the local population. Unrest among the peasant masses of the Golovins' Vorotynets estate had begun even before this. Rumours circulated among the peasants that the sovereign Peter III was granting the people their freedom and land, calling them to struggle against their oppressors, and would soon arrive in their region himself or send his emissaries.
On 20 July a gathering was held in Vorotynets at which peasant Vasily Chernov proposed recognizing "sovereign Peter III." He was supported by peasants Andrei Ananyin, Urusov, Filipp and Ivan Novoselov, Mikhail Kireyev, Ivan Frolov, Grigory Soldatov, Fyodor Puzin, and others. The assembly unanimously resolved to recognize Peter III. At the same time it was decided to arrest and hand over for "the tsar's judgment," as offenders and oppressors of the people, the estate manager Aleksei Teteyev, his wife Anastasia, the elected elder Andrei Kireyev, and also a Frenchman and a German who managed the factory and the tannery.
On 22 July a new assembly was held in the village, attended by up to 40 peasants from Semyany and Berezovka. They declared that they had been to Kurmysh, had seen the tsar, and that he had ordered all "estate plunderers" to be brought before him for judgment. The assembly resolved to send the arrested overseers to Kurmysh and designated Mikhail Romanov, Ivan Petrov, Ivan and Fyodor Burov, Nikita Savelyev, Mikhail Abramov, Andrei Klyuyev, Fyodor Bespalov, Mikhail Dolgov, Matvei Lazarev, Grigory Bryuzgin, Fyodor Odintsov, Pavel Bykov, Filipp Novozhenin, and others as their escorts. By the evening of the same day, some of them returned home and announced that all those sent for judgment had been hanged in Semyany on the orders of a tsar's colonel who had arrived there and who promised to come to Vorotynets.
It turned out that on 22 July a group of Pugachev's men led by Aristov had entered Semyany. He declared himself a colonel sent by Sovereign Peter III and invited the peasants that "…if they had grievances against their overseers, let them bring them forward for judgment." At that moment the Semyany and Vorotynets peasants who had been escorting the arrested men to Kurmysh arrived in the village. Aristov, upon learning who was being brought in, ordered them hanged on the spot. At the same time, the Semyany stewards Ivan Fadeyev and Pavel Kordyukov were hanged for oppressing the people.
On the morning of 23 July, the population of Vorotynets and representatives from other villages of the estate, led by elder Chuyev, elected deputies Stepanov and Vasily Chernov, and accompanied by priests and church clergy bearing icons and the traditional bread and salt, met Aristov. A trial was then held in the square over Ivan Teteyev, the estate manager's brother, and his son Vasily, who were accused of cruel treatment and violence. Aristov ordered them hanged on the gates of a peasant house, which was carried out by Nikita Denisov, Grigory Krivenkov, and others. At Aristov's suggestion, many peasants and workers voluntarily agreed to join the "sovereign's army." All available stocks of linen, leather goods, flax, grain, and other produce were distributed among the population. The linen factory's equipment and the manor house were ransacked, and the tannery was burned down.
The following day Aristov, taking a factory worker named Pytov as a guide, set off for the estate of the Ural industrialist Demidov — the village of Fokino. However, he was seized there by peasants and sent to Nizhny.
From Kurmysh, Pugachev began advancing with his army toward the Volga, but upon learning of the approach of tsarist punitive forces he turned toward Alatyr on 23 July. Several rebel detachments were dispatched in the direction of Yadrin, Lyskovo, and Arzamas. One of them, numbering up to 300 men and joined by local peasants including those from Kekino, Shokino, Trishkino, and other villages, attempted to take Yadrin but was repulsed.
The peasant unrest spread across a wide area. The Nizhny Novgorod governor Stupushin reported that Pugachev, "passing through various settlements and dispersing in many detachments across Kurmysh, Yadrin, Alatyr, and partly Nizhny Novgorod and Arzamas districts, brought the landowners', palace, and economic peasants into great turmoil and disobedience toward their landlords and authorities." To intimidate the population he ordered that 6 captured Pugachev men be hanged "in the towns of Nizhny, Kurmysh, and in villages of Nizhny Novgorod District: Bogorodskoye, Pavlovo, Spassoye, and Vorotynets."
A military detachment with artillery was sent to Kurmysh District. Along the way, the punitive force occupied Vorotynets and carried out the governor's order: they hanged "a Pugachev accomplice" in the village square, arrested Chernov and other participants in the uprising and sent them to Nizhny, and had some flogged. This punitive detachment subsequently defeated the rebels in the area of Yadrin and Kurmysh.
In Nizhny Novgorod, the participants in the Vorotynets uprising were subjected to torture. One of its leaders, the peasant of the village of Vorotynets Vasily Fyodorovich Chernov, showed himself to be a courageous and principled man. This is attested by the record of his interrogation, which states: "Chernov, during this interrogation, under severe torment throughout its entire duration, stubbornly refused to call Pugachev a villain, holding him to be the sovereign Peter the Third by name; however, at last, not from remorse of conscience but from inability to endure the torment, he called him a villain."
Chernov was sentenced to death; the sentence required confirmation by the Kazan Secret Commission. The Commission confirmed it, proposing that Chernov be hanged "in the place where he committed his crimes — in Vorotynets."
However, the Nizhny Novgorod governor, without waiting for the sentence to be confirmed, hanged Chernov in Nizhny, on the bank of the Oka River. His justification was that at that time (August 1774) the city contained a great multitude of barge haulers and other workers from various places, "who will themselves be frightened by the execution and will also tell others that Pugachev's accomplices who commit villainies do not escape their deserved punishment… And the peasants of the village of Vorotynets, of whom some seventy were then in Nizhny for investigation into their crimes, witnessed the execution carried out upon Chernov, and many of them were flogged beneath the gallows." Subsequently, in all likelihood, most of them were exiled to hard labor. Aristov was hanged in Kazan. By imperial decree, all governors were instructed to erect along the main roads "gallows, gibbets, and breaking wheels" in all towns and settlements whose inhabitants had during Pugachev's uprising "dared to rebel and depart from due loyal obedience both to the chancelleries and authorities, and from submission to their landlords."
On the territory of the district, instruments of execution were installed in 8 populated places: Vorotynets, Semyany, Belavka, Akhpayevka, Berezovka (Berezov-Maydan), Kekino, Shokino, and Dorodino (Trishkino). In the surrounding area they were erected in Kurmysh, Spassoye, Knyaginino, Troitskoye, and many other villages.
An Appanage Village in the 19th Century
Nikolai Nikolayevich Golovin was the last private owner of Vorotynets. The entire life of this dandy and spendthrift, notorious throughout the country, was spent in uninterrupted amusements and pleasures. After the count's death, the estate likewise acquired a nationwide "reputation." His relatives declined to accept the inheritance in order to avoid paying his enormous debts to creditors. The government "devised" a way to satisfy the creditors. For a whole year the Senatorial Gazette published an announcement advertising an imminent grand government lottery in which the prizes would be the Nizhny Novgorod villages of Vorotynets, Semyany, and Belavka, along with a number of villages in Oryol Governorate, houses in various towns, and other property.
The draw took place in 1823. The village of Vorotynets fell to five residents of the city of Odessa: a physician named Stubbe, an official named Zakrevsky, a merchant named Serato, a merchant's widow named Tryumina, and a non-commissioned officer named Kirillov. All five Odessans, not knowing what to do with a vast estate located a thousand versts from their place of residence, surrendered their "landlord" rights to the Appanage Department, which paid each of them 200,000 rubles.
The Vorotynets Appanage Office was established and managed all affairs until the abolition of serfdom in the state village in 1863.
Alongside farming and horticulture, the appanage peasants of Vorotynets engaged in trade. Entire dynasties of local merchants appeared in Vorotynets: the Yalovitsyny, the Simonovy, and the Ryabovy.
From the early 1860s, the grain trade began to develop actively in Vorotynets. Before that, the grain trade in the eastern part of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate had been concentrated in the selo of Lyskovo. When barges on the Volga River were hauled by barge haulers, it was more economical to bring grain from the villages to Lyskovo. Vorotynets lay 50 versts downstream from Lyskovo, and that difference added an extra ten kopecks per pood of grain. With the advent of steamship navigation on the Volga, the freight rate to Rybinsk became the same whether the cargo was loaded at Vorotynets or at Lyskovo.
Before the peasant reform of 1861, landowners had hauled grain to Lyskovo even from distant places, since their drivers — serf peasants — cost them nothing. Now landowners had to pay for horse-drawn transport of grain and naturally chose the nearest wharf. For these two reasons, Vorotynets became, from the 1880s onward, a strong rival to Lyskovo in the grain trade, particularly in spring crops.
Throughout the winter, grain was brought to Vorotynets from the Kurmysh, Yadrinsky, Kozmodemyansky, Yaransky, and Vasilsky districts, and partly from the Sergach and Knyagininsky districts as well. Both peasant grain and landowners' grain was hauled in. Market days in Vorotynets were Mondays, while on the preceding Sundays there were so-called "podtorzhya" (pre-market days). At the busiest markets, around St. Nicholas's Day in winter, as many as 1,500 carts loaded with grain would gather in Vorotynets.
The purchased grain required bast sacks. Bast matting for the sacks was brought from various places, including Lipovka and Akhpayevka. A hundred pieces of bast matting cost from 7 rubles upward, while Vetluga bast matting — the finest quality — could reach 30 rubles per hundred. Bast fiber for sewing up the sacks was obtained in Kurmysh and Yadrin at 60–80 kopecks per pood. The bast sacks were sewn by Vorotynets women at home, at 1.5–2 kopecks per sack.
Specialized workers called "podsevals" (sifters-and-packers) performed this work; there were about 70 of them. They filled the bast sacks with rye or wheat and sewed them shut with bast fiber. The "podsevals" were paid 2–3 kopecks for every 10 poods of grain packed, "using their own sieve." Their work was done at night, from 11 in the evening until 7 in the morning. Throughout the entire winter, the "podsevals" turned night into their day and day into their night. From early morning, carters waited to transport the grain in its sacks to the granaries. There were 70 carters in the selo, with 450 horses.
Vorotynets itself had 332 small grain granaries, but the most capacious 45 granaries stood on the bank of the Volga at the so-called "starochugunnaya" (old cast-iron) wharf, some 6.5 versts from Vorotynets.
With the opening of navigation, the "starochugunnaya" wharf entered its busiest season. Grain was carted out of the granaries and loaded onto barges. Between 600 and 800 stevedores (hook-men) would gather at the wharf. They came from Osinki, Otary, Semyany, Barmino, Ognev-Maydan, and Vorotynets itself. Around the wharf, hundreds of hook-men formed an entire temporary settlement, since they needed somewhere to sleep and eat. Stevedores were paid 3–3.5 kopecks per sack (5.5 poods). Over the course of a navigation season, three shipping runs were made upstream from Vorotynets. The first (spring) run went to Rybinsk, and the other two (summer runs) went to the Nizhny Novgorod Yarmarka. Water freight from Vorotynets to Rybinsk cost 5–6 kopecks, and to Nizhny Novgorod — 2.5–3 kopecks.
Large consignments of grain in Vorotynets were purchased by out-of-town "upstream" traders from Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, St. Petersburg, and Yaroslavl. These traders did not themselves live in Vorotynets and sometimes never visited at all. The locals called them "sumalei." The major traders — the "sumy" — kept their own agents in Vorotynets on a salary of 70–90 rubles per winter, and also paid for the agents' lodgings and granary rental, which could run to 300 rubles depending on the capacity of the granaries and their location — in the selo or at the wharf.
But there were also poor sellers of their own grain in Vorotynets. Out of frugality, they looked in the selo not for lodgings but merely for a "night's stay" with cabbage soup for 5–6 kopecks. What grain prices prevailed at Vorotynets markets? Here are the figures for 1870: rye — 4 rubles to 4 rubles 50 kopecks per quarter (10 poods); oats — 1 ruble 80 kopecks to 2 rubles 40 kopecks per quarter; wheat — 68 kopecks per pood; linseed — 1 ruble to 1 ruble 5 kopecks per pood. Over the ten years from 1860 to 1870, winter grain purchases in Vorotynets grew from 780,000 poods to 1,320,000 poods, drawing close to the turnover of the celebrated Lyskovo grain trade.
Subsequently, the expansion of the railways — in particular the Romodanovo and Moscow–Kazan lines — reduced the former commercial importance of both Lyskovo and Vorotynets to nothing. Nizhny Novgorod and Rybinsk became the centers of the grain trade on the Upper Volga.
Under the reform of 1863, appanage peasants were removed from the jurisdiction of the Department of Appanages and subordinated to the general state administration, becoming ordinary citizens of Russia; the appanage system of governance was abolished, and appanage offices became volost offices. The status of "temporarily obligated" peasants did not apply to appanage peasants; redemption of allotments was immediately made compulsory for them.
By June 1864 the Charter Documents had been drawn up, but bringing them into force dragged on until 1871, and the formalization of land demarcation documents took even longer. The former appanage peasants received no addition to their allotments; on the contrary, the land cuts in the Nizhny Novgorod appanage villages were very substantial.
The trouble lay not only in the amount of land cut away. "In safeguarding the interests of the Appanage," its officials endeavored to carve out the best portions from the peasant allotments — those situated near the villages. The result was a complex patchwork of intermixed peasant and appanage lands. A telling example is that of the peasants of the selo of Akhpayevka in the Vorotynsky Office. Four times they petitioned the Department of Appanages, virtually begging it to return to them the fields of the former communal plowland, offering other land in exchange. But the appanage office had already sold off those plots to prosperous peasants, and the manager of the Nizhny Novgorod appanage estate openly boasted that he had extracted a "never-before-seen" price for them in the district.
According to calculations by Nizhny Novgorod historian Professor A. V. Sedov, the total area of land cuts in the appanage villages of Nizhny Novgorod Governorate amounted to approximately 27,000 desyatinas (up to 20 % of peasant land). This exceeded the cuts made to the serfs of landowners, which stood at 18 % and are considered the highest in Nizhny Novgorod Governorate. Yet it was the appanage peasants who had the least land to begin with.
The peasants of the Vorotynsky Office suffered more than any others: not only were the largest land cuts made at their expense, but the highest redemption payments were also levied on them. Of the 27,500 desyatinas the peasants had held before the reform, 7,000 were cut away.
Appanage peasants were granted an installment plan for their redemption payments spread over 49 years. Over that period they had to repay not only the state loan but also the interest on it — which tripled the payments. On that basis, one desyatina of land cost the appanage peasants in the Vorotynsky Office 65 rubles. These terms did not satisfy the peasants, and many refused to sign the appanage charters — the principal documents of the reform. It is hardly surprising that the appanage peasants resisted this "emancipation" as best they could. In the Vorotynsky Office, out of 15 charter documents, officials managed to obtain peasant signatures on only four.
With the abolition of serfdom, the Vorotynsky appanage office was dissolved into volosts: the Vorotynsky, the Barmino-Venetskaya, and the Prosetskaya; Shumets was transferred to the Yurinsky volost.
Industry and Construction
Trade and Services
Education, Healthcare, and Culture
Sights and Traditions
The architectural appearance of Vorotynets is constantly changing, but its foundation consists of buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries. These are mainly merchants' and prosperous peasants' houses — semi-basement structures or stone buildings with cellars.
Church of the Holy Image of the Savior Not Made by Human Hands in Vorotynets
The stone church in Vorotynets was built in 1814 in the Empire style then prevailing. In 1937 the church was closed and used as a warehouse by the local collective farm and subsequently by the district consumer cooperative. In the mid-1960s it underwent major alterations: the bell tower and cupolas were demolished, windows for a second floor were cut through, and a new extension replaced the western porch. This severely distorted the church's appearance. At present the question of its restoration is being considered — and as is usually the case in such situations, everything comes down to money.
Monument to Prince Vorotynsky
On 20 September 2008, the settlement of Vorotynets hosted the ceremony of unveiling and consecrating a monument to Prince Vorotynsky — the first monument in Russia to a member of the distinguished family of Russian military commanders, diplomats, and statesmen. Mikhail Ivanovich Vorotynsky was the first private owner (from 1569) of the local lands, an outstanding military commander of the 16th century, a hero of the storming of Kazan (1552) and the Battle of Molodi (1572), and the author of Russia's first border service regulations — the "Boyar Decree on Frontier and Patrol Service" (1571). His son Ivan Mikhaylovich Vorotynskiy was a prominent statesman of the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century.
The sculptor is Vladimir Porfirievich Nagornov, Honored Artist of the Russian Federation and Laureate of the State Prize of the Chuvash Republic. This distinguished master is responsible for such works as the monument to the "Mother-Protectress," one of the symbols of the Chuvash Republic, as well as monuments to the celebrated ophthalmologist Svyatoslav Fyodorov in Cheboksary and to the popular educator Ivan Yakovlev in Ulyanovsk.
The Vorotynets Religious Procession
Every year on 29 August, the feast day of the church's patron, a Religious Procession with the icon of the Holy Image of the Savior passes through the streets of the settlement of Vorotynets.
During the festive Religious Procession, prayer services and litias are held at the monument to Prince Vorotynsky, at the old cemetery, at the chapel on the central square, at the Holy Well, and on the hospital grounds.
At the conclusion of the procession, the bread of the new harvest is blessed on the church porch, since in folk tradition this day is called the third, the Bread Spas (Savior's Day).
Fresh, appetizingly fragrant rolls are distributed to all who have walked the more than 5 kilometers of the procession.
Vorotynsky District Day
On the third Saturday of September, Vorotynets hosts the District Day celebration and the agricultural fair "Vorotynets the Hospitable."
The festival programme is vibrant, rich, and ceremonious, yet at the same time has a cozy, homely feel. The people of Vorotynets demonstrate their love and respect for the history and traditions of their native land and the unbroken bond between generations.
Agricultural enterprises, farming households, private smallholders, schools, and individual entrepreneurs from Vorotynsky and neighboring districts offer buyers a vast selection of varied goods: vegetables, fruit, seedlings, home-preserved foods, meat, dairy and fish products, mixed feed, fertilizers, livestock and poultry, and souvenirs. Street cafés are open, where visitors can snack on shashlik, baked goods, and culinary specialties, and enjoy hot tea and coffee.
On the central square of the settlement of Vorotynets, a children's amusement park operates; the district museum and the school's excursion bureau organize guided tours of the district center.
The occasion is also used to present residents of the district with letters of commendation from the Government and the Legislative Assembly of Nizhny Novgorod Region, to confer the honorary title of "Honorary Citizen of Vorotynsky District," and to award the Honorary Pennants of Vorotynsky District.
Throughout the day, the Volga sports and fitness complex hosts sports competitions in mini-football, hockey, swimming, volleyball, and basketball — "Volga Autumn" — with teams from Vorotynsky and other districts of Nizhny Novgorod Region, as well as from the Chuvash and Mari El Republics.
Creative groups from cultural institutions offer audiences a concert programme entitled "Rich in Talent Is Our Vorotynsky District." Performances by visiting guests have become a tradition.
The festive events continue into the evening with a show programme on the central square. The celebration concludes with the lights of a fireworks display, "Autumn Meteor Shower."
The festival's motto — "My love and my fate — the Vorotynets land" — is fully borne out by all its participants who took part in the preparation and staging of the event: enterprises and organizations regardless of their status and affiliation, schoolchildren, veterans, field and farm workers, entrepreneurs, and municipal employees.