page_title: Minin and Pozharsky Square
section_title: The Soviet period
hierarchical_section_title: Minin and Pozharsky Square / History / The Soviet period
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Советская площадь. Город Горький
context_page_description: The Minin and Pozharsky Square is the main square of Nizhny Novgorod. It is a social and cultural center of the city, the venue of the most important celebrations. It is located in the historical centre of the old town from the southeast side of the Kremlin.
  The square connects the central streets of the city: Bolshaya Pokrovskaya, Varvarskaya, Ulyanov, Minin, Upper Volga embankment and Zelensky Descent. There are many architectural monuments, the Minin University, Lobachevsky University and the Medical University; monuments to Minin, Chkalov; Exhibition Complex, as well as the first city fountain.
  The square is the roadway. Movement on it overlaps only on holidays and at the time of other events.
context_section_description: After the Russian Revolution, the Annunciation Square was renamed into Soviet Square. All the church utensils were plundered in the Annunciation Cathedral and the Church of St. Alexius the Metropolitan, and a variety of commercial shops were opened in the buildings themselves. In the 1930s of the 20th century, both churches were demolished. Also bolsheviks was demolished, recently installed, a monument to Alexander II. For a long time, only an empty pedestal remained, but it was also decided to destroy it.
  In 1935-1937, the Leningrad Institute "Giprogor" developed a general plan for the socialist city of Gorky (the name of Nizhny Novgorod in the Soviet period), which implied a radical change in the existing planning structure. Soviet Square at that time was designed round, its area significantly increased due to the demolition of some of the walls and towers of the Kremlin, which was perceived in those years as "a monument to avaricious feudalism and the tsarist autocracy, a witness to the terrible pages of the bloody past".
  The implementation of these projects was prevented by the outbreak of World War II in the Soviet Union.
  In 1943, at the regular meeting of the Gorky Regional Committee, it was decided to raise the morale of citizens, in the fight against Nazism. For this purpose, the first monument to Kuzma Minin was erected on the square. And it began to be called the Minin and Pozharsky Square. The citizens were inspired by such a gift. The townspeople always respected their ancestor very much and appreciated his feat.
  In 1985, the old monument to Minin was dismantled and sent to the restoration in Balakhna, where he remained. Four years later, in 1989, a new monument was erected by the Soviet sculptor Oleg Komov.
caption: Soviet Square. The 1920s
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