Address: Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, between Koromyslovaya and Kladovaya towers
Start of construction: 1508 year
Completion of construction: 1511 year
Coordinates: 56 ° 19'32.5 "N 44 ° 00'05.3" E
Content:
Brief history and description
The rectangular Nikolskaya tower of a later time of construction rises above the Zelensky Congress, extending from the end of Minin and Pozharsky Square. The tower is named after the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, which once stood on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street, on the opposite side of the Zelensky Congress.
The church and the adjacent Orthodox burials have not survived to this day, and the place where they were located was recognized by the authorities of the Nizhny Novgorod region as a historical reserve zone "Nikolskoye cemetery". Like all travel towers, Nikolskaya had a gate with a protective lattice - a gers and a drawbridge passing through the Pochainsky ravine.
View of the tower from the pedestrian bridge
The towers of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin (Nikolskaya, Koromyslova, Taynitskaya), built along the slope to Pochayna, housed stores with gunpowder, and in the ravine itself there was a plant with a windmill - Zeleiny Dvor.
In the old days in Russia gunpowder was called "fire potion", hence the name of the congress - Zeleiny. Despite the fact that the Nikolskaya Tower was inferior to Dmitrievskaya in terms of its firepower, it served as an important stronghold in the defense of the fortress.
View of the tower from st. Pozharskaya
The defenders of the Nikolskaya Tower were armed with three copper pishchal, the largest of which - the "Kazan" - could fire with cannonballs weighing 1.8 kg. In 1785 - 1790, the Governor of Nizhny Novgorod I.M. Rebinder carried out a large-scale reconstruction of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, distorting the original appearance of the ancient defense structure. As part of the "greatest repair", the embrasures of the Nikolskaya Tower were replaced by the usual rectangular openings, the teeth were half removed. In the 18th - 19th centuries, the tower was used to store food supplies. During the reconstruction in 1837, the structure lost the white stone cladding of the lower walls, which reached the height of the semi-shaft. Until 1956, auxiliary rooms of the military department were located within the walls of the Nikolskaya Tower.
By 1959, restorers restored the hipped roof of the tower, crowning it with a guard tower. Today, a pedestrian bridge erected over Zelensky Congress in 1982 is adjacent to the Nikolskaya Tower.... It was built on the site of an old wooden bridge, cut "on cages", through which one could get to the gates of the Nikolskaya Tower.
