After another series of Sibveda about the houses brought in, this photo attracted attention:
Namely, they were interested in the houses in the lower right corner.
This is Kunavinskaya Sloboda, the Zaoksky suburb of Nizhny Novgorod. Yes, now this area is called Kanavinsky, but we will call it the historical name of Kunavino. You can read about different versions of the origin of the name in a wonderful brochure, the text of which was written in 1865 by the famous Nizhny Novgorod historian N. I. Khramtsovsky (1818 - 1890). There was also gleaned historical information about this place.
Classic semi-filled first floors.
Houses 1, 2, 3, 6 are located on Elizavetinskaya (Kommunisticheskaya) Street, and 4 and 5 - at the intersection of Aleksandrovskaya (Internatsionalnaya) Street and 10-11 Line (Priokskaya Street).
Let's try to date the photo first.
Promotional video:
For orientation convenience - the plan of the Kunavinskaya part of the late 19th century.
The picture, clearly pre-revolutionary, was obviously taken from the roof of the Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord at the Kunavinskoye cemetery (we will return to this remarkable building later. The photography technique speaks more of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The upper border will be determined no later than 1900, so as to the right of the house indicated above under No. 4, we do not see the Bashkirovsky vocational school (by the way about architecture, compare with the current vocational schools), completed this year. A remarkable example of a relatively modern building with a kind of "filled up" floor. This is of course the basement, the difference between the clinker brick of the basement and the ordinary brick from which the rest of the building is built is clearly visible.
The lower boundary is determined using Ilyin's atlas. In the edition of 1876, the quarter from the Transfiguration Church along the Elizavetinskaya line to the 10-11 line has not yet been marked, and the intersection with Aleksandrovskaya is not yet fully formed.
And a couple more map fragments.
The General Staff Plan from 1845 is the same picture.
Map of the Nizhny Novgorod province from 1780
So, this photo was taken in the last quarter of the 19th century.
Now let's look at the so-called cultural layers. Let's start with the Bashkirovsky school.
For a hundred years the level of the pavement has not undergone any noticeable changes.
Let's go back to the houses on Elizavetinskaya Street opposite the cemetery. Four of the six buildings noted above have survived to this day.
For a period of no less than 120 years, the level of the pavement, if it has risen, is no more than 10-20 cm.
Let's pay attention to some details.
House No. 1. Stone first floor, the second wooden, most likely from a bar trimmed with a board (at the time of shooting). Currently, we see that the second floor is also stone. It often happened that the second wooden floor was changed to a stone one, and even nowadays. In the memory of the author, in a provincial town, the second floor burned to the ground with the stone first in a similar house. Subsequently, the floor was rebuilt from foam concrete blocks. Judging by the architecture of the second floor, it was rebuilt at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
House No. 2. The second log floor has been preserved in its original form. In fact, a village hut was placed on the stone floor.
House No. 3. The first floor is stone, the second is also made of timber, but already plastered.
House No. 4. Both floors are stone.
House number 5. Similar to number 1.
Typical examples of civil buildings in a small provincial town or a suburb of a large city.
All these two-storey buildings are united by the fact that their first floors are below the level of the pavement and are completely different from the basement or basement (remember how the basement at the Bashkirovsky school next door looks like). An indirect proof that these floors were not conceived as the basement ones serve as building No. 6 and the one opposite to it on Elizavetinskaya Street. The level of the windows of these houses corresponds to the level of the first floors of tasks 1-5. But these buildings are one-story! It is difficult to imagine the construction of a one-story house buried 1-1.5 into the ground. These are not dugouts, but city houses! Especially in areas where there is a threat of flooding.
Perhaps the houses were brought in during the frequent floods here? After all, Kunavino is located on the left, low bank of the Oka, which annually suffered from spring floods. There are two objections to this version.
First, the historical one. Let us turn to the work of N. I. Khramtsovsky:
Then Khramtsovsky talks about how the Kunavinsky in the middle of the 17th century. cunningly "wrestled" Grivka from the monasteries and it essentially turned into Kunavino. Thus, modern Kunavino was not flooded with spring floods.
The second objection is the Kunawin cemetery. No one in their right mind would locate a graveyard in a flood zone. Cemetery level - approx. 80 m above sea level, about the same as throughout Kunavin.
The flood level hardly exceeded 77 m above sea level.
But maybe these are the deposits of human life? As we have already found out, the cultural layer over the past 120 years has not exceeded 20 cm (1.7 mm per year - and this, according to the most overestimated estimates, judging by the Bashkirovsky school, the level has not changed at all). It is unlikely that the cultural layer accumulated many times faster over the previous century.
When were these houses built? Nos. 1-3 were built after 1876 (according to Ilyin's atlas - see above). Nos. 4-6 already existed before 1845 (see the map of the General Staff)
Let's turn to Khramtsovsky again:
But despite this …
That is, the settlement began to acquire an urban look after 1817, and then only the side that was closer to the fair, that is, the northern, we are considering the southern part.
Thus, capital stone construction in Kunavino began not earlier than the first third of the 19th century. It is unlikely that brick buildings built at different times in 80-60-40 years synchronously plunged into the ground by 1-1.5 meters and then in 120 years - no more than 20 cm.
Now let's turn to the Kunavin churches.
The first is the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God. This is the temple of the monastic settlements of Grivka, founded in the 17th century. Porphyry. The third, stone building was built in 1812 (hmm, during the Patriotic War?), Finally demolished after the Second World War, now the Nizhny Novgorod circus is located in this place. She can be seen in the title photo.
We are more interested in the Savior Transfiguration Church at the Kunavinsky cemetery. Khramtsovsky:
An interesting person was this Monk. The building of the Transfiguration Church has a rather unusual architecture for Orthodox churches. Nikolaev classicism, a huge dome, a pronounced two-story structure. Let's face it, a very extraordinary structure. The bell tower, unfortunately, has not survived.
V. V. Monakhov deserves a few words about him. He was not rich, but had significant business, was known between the city merchants and visitors as a businessman. He made acquaintance with all the city authorities and the highest clergy; distinguished by hospitality and sharpness of mind; its severity, at one time, walked around the city and made those to whom they touched, bile rise to nec plus ultra. But for all this Monakhov was loved and respected in society. With regard to mental development, the Monks stood above many personalities of his class: in his house, twenty years ago, home performances were given, in which his family participated. Monakhovu owes Kunavino his parish school. Most of the Kunavinians, due to the remoteness of the schools, which were located in the center of the city, cared little about teaching their children to read and write. Noticing this, Monakhov in 1825 asked the permission of the authorities, and started a school in his house, invited the priest of the Kunavin church John Kolosovsky and deacon G. I. Vinogradov. The first taught the boys the law of God free of charge, the second for teaching Russian and Slavic literacy and calligraphy Monakhs paid from himself a salary; the tutorials were also from the founder's account. For two years he kept the Monakhov school, on the third the school administration, convinced of its usefulness, ranked it among the schools of the Nizhny Novgorod province. Nowadays there are up to 80 students in the Kunavinsky school.the second for teaching Russian and Slavic letters and calligraphy Monakhov paid his salary; the tutorials were also from the founder's account. For two years he kept the Monakhov school, on the third the school administration, convinced of its usefulness, ranked it among the schools of the Nizhny Novgorod province. Nowadays there are up to 80 students in the Kunavinsky school.the second for teaching Russian and Slavic letters and calligraphy Monakhov paid his salary; the tutorials were also from the founder's account. For two years he kept the Monakhov school, on the third the school administration, convinced of its usefulness, ranked it among the schools of the Nizhny Novgorod province. Nowadays there are up to 80 students in the Kunavinsky school.
To this I consider it necessary to add that all this was done by Monakhov without noise and noisy effects, so that in Nizhny, both now and then, little was known about the service that Monakhov did to the inhabitants of Kunavin.
The monks died in old age and not in a flourishing state. The latter can be judged because in the inscription above his gravestone it was said that the monument was made from the income of the Transfiguration Church. Now this inscription no longer exists.
Monks - Freemason? illuminati?
What matters to us is that this building has a basement floor with windows.
It is remarkable that the height of this "crypt" coincides with the height of the first floors, half-submerged into the ground along Elizavetinskaya Street, which we have discussed above!
A few words about the Kunavinskoye cemetery. It was closed during the Soviet period. Now on its territory are located the sports complex and the plant "Normal" - a developer and manufacturer of aircraft fasteners for civil and military aviation and the space industry. Khramtsovsky:
And finally, we will walk through the Kunavinskaya Sloboda and note the preserved stone and half-stone buildings with half-submerged first floors.
Typical neighborhood of buildings with buried and normal ground floors:
Pits:
Red dots are stone buildings with the first (basement? Basement?) Floor significantly below the pavement level. Blue dots are stone buildings with the first floor above or approximately at the level of the pavement.
The red dots gravitate towards the cemetery, this is a younger area. The blue tends to the older side of the fair.
Isn't it all very reminiscent of the inconsistency in the first floors of St. Petersburg?
There are no accidents.