Turning to historical data, we must take it as an indisputable fact that the first owners of the area of the Nizhny Novgorod region were mainly the Mordovians, and then the Meshcheryaks and Cheremis, who belonged to the Finnish region. tribe. They settled there in the twentieth century. To the east of the mouth of the Oka lived the Bulgarians and Burtases, and they even had a city near the mouth of the Oka. In the letter, among other things, it is said under the year 1171: “I was with Prince Metislavl on Gorodtsi, with his brother St. Murom and Ryazan at the mouth of the Oka, and waited for the squad for two weeks and did not wait with the front squad in the poses (to the Bulgarian land), and took villages six and Semyon Zorod."
The aspirations of the Russian tribe to own the Volga East begin to rush towards the KhPI. Formed, at first, from purely private motives for small seizures, and the plunder of Bulgarian and Mordovian settlements, to rob Bulgarian merchants, this desire little by little, but with constant persistence, turned into a persistent idea of the need to conquer and colonize the Volga coast. Each new conquest entailed the desire to preserve what had been acquired, to protect oneself from the possibility of attack by those who had just been surrounded, but were able to gather their strength; and this, in turn, created the need for long-range captures. And so it went on and on, through several villages, until the entire mighty Volga was swallowed up by Russian property.
Nizhny Novgorod was founded in 1292 *) by Prince Yurem and Veevolodovich, who, as expressed by the Nizhny Novgorod chronicler, “laid the rivers at the mouth of the Oka River, and called the name) Novz the Nizhny, and the church erected in it the cathedral “Archistrapia of Michael, wooden, and the Mordovians owned that land.”
When choosing a site for the founding of a new city, Yur P, of course, was guided by an important political consideration for that time, concerning further views of the Mordovian and Bulgarian lands, as well as the protection of his possessions from the invasions of the same Mordovians. For such people, the “Dyatlov Mountains” provided quite a few amenities. But in addition to darkness, it is quite possible that the prince was at the same time not a stranger to some poetic ideas to create something similar to the holy Russian city of Yevev, with its Pechersk Lavra. The similarity between the two areas is striking: both there are beautiful heights, cut by ravines.
*) According to some instructions in 1221.
gami, go down to the bank of the river; both there and here these shores are washed by a luxurious river, carrying its waters to the distant, desired sea; both there and here from the high mountains there are endless views of the distant meadow lowlands, greenery beyond the river. That the assumption regarding the above-mentioned idea, which could seduce Yuri P, is not a stretch, was partly confirmed by the promise that, having founded Nizhny-Novgorod, Yursh I built a monastery in it, which he called Pechersky, and gave the name “Pochayny” to the river flowing through one of the Nizhny Novgorod ravines.
Part of the city NW
Before the start of the XX century, Nizhny Novgorod had no independent significance and played the role of no more than a guard stronghold of the Nizovsky land, as all the Russian rulers along the Volga River, starting from the mouth of the Mologa River, were then called. Yuri P tried in every possible way to protect the newly founded city from enemy invasion; For this purpose, the city was surrounded by a ditch and ramparts; strong detachments were stationed in it, and they visited the Mordovian lands. But since 1350, the importance of Nizhny Novgorod has increased; Great Prince of Suzdal, Konstantin Vasilyevich, trying to found a strong principality as a counterbalance to Moscow, move your throne from Suzdal to Nizhny Novgorod. The sons of Konstantin Vasilyevich tried their best to defend the independence of the Nizhny Novgorod principality; Boris even took part in an open struggle with Moscow’s aspirations to seize the neighboring princes under his own hand and paid for this with the throne; Hegumen Radonezheyu Serii was sent to him from the Moscow Metropolitan Alevsya, who was tasked with persuading Prince Boris to cede his throne to his brother Dmitro Konstantinovich, who, as a gocho no n-engine zaoozu 9 multiply And `0 and!
Of course, Moscow was conquered by Bolshe. Boris flatly refused, despite the fact that Sergius, for disobedience, ordered in the name of the Metropolitan to lock all churches in Nizhny Novgorod. But the Moscow army came to the aid of the spiritual disciples with Prince Dmitry Konetantinovich, who took possession of Nizhny and, capturing his brother Boris, took him to Moscow.