Old photos · Russia
Old photos of Nizhny Novgorod
More than 500 of its photographs are from 1896 alone, the year of the All-Russian Exhibition — but its busiest decades are the 1950s and 1960s, when the city was called Gorky.
Time Portal's archive holds about 18,000 photographs of Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky), taken between 1861 and 2000, each pinned to the spot where the photographer stood. 61% of them date from 1955 or later and are free to browse at map.timeportal.app with no account; the older ones open with Pro. The oldest, dated 1861 in the archive, shows the Nativity Church, also called the Stroganov Church.
- Photographs
- 18,000
- Oldest
- 1861
- Busiest decade
- 1960s
- Free, 1955 on
- 61%
How many photographs, decade by decade
The busiest decades for Nizhny Novgorod are the 1960s and the 1950s — 3,410 and 2,674 photographs. 1,597 were taken before 1900. Everything from 1955 onward is free to open on the map; the older photographs are part of Pro.
| Decade | Relative size | Photographs |
|---|---|---|
| before 1860 | 1 | |
| 1860s | 45 | |
| 1870s | 126 | |
| 1880s | 201 | |
| 1890s | 1,224 | |
| 1900s | 749 | |
| 1910s | 550 | |
| 1920s | 818 | |
| 1930s | 1,483 | |
| 1940s | 711 | |
| 1950s | 2,674 | |
| 1960s | 3,410 | |
| 1970s | 2,638 | |
| 1980s | 1,943 | |
| 1990s | 1,393 |
Where the photographs were taken
Counted in a small square around each place — about 250 metres each way — so a number is every photograph taken there, of the place itself or of the street beside it. Each place opens the map on that spot.
| Place | Photos | Oldest |
|---|---|---|
| The Kremlin | 2,633 | 1868 |
| Minin and Pozharsky Square | 1,585 | 1867–1869 |
| Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street | 597 | 1896 |
| The Chkalov Stairs | 984 | 1895–1899 |
| Rozhdestvenskaya Street | 284 | 1894 |
| The Fair | 867 | 1870–1873 |
What changed
Nizhny Novgorod grew rich on its fair, held every summer across the Oka from 1817 and for most of the nineteenth century the largest in Russia. In 1896 the city hosted the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition, and that one year accounts for nearly half of the archive's photographs from the 1890s.
From 1932 to 1990 the city was Gorky, after the writer born here, and for much of that time it was closed to foreigners. The fair had closed by 1930, though its Main Fair House still stands. Below the kremlin, the Chkalov Stairs down to the Volga embankment were finished in 1949.
Questions about old photos of Nizhny Novgorod
Where can I see old photos of Nizhny Novgorod on a map?
On Time Portal: about 18,000 photographs of Nizhny Novgorod, each pinned where it was taken, most with the direction the camera faced. The map is free in any browser at map.timeportal.app — photographs from 1955 on need no account — and there is an app for iPhone and iPad.
What is the oldest photograph of Nizhny Novgorod in the archive?
The oldest precisely dated photograph, from 1861, shows the Nativity Church, also called the Stroganov Church. 1,597 of the Nizhny Novgorod photographs were taken before 1900.
Which years of Nizhny Novgorod are best covered?
The 1960s, with 3,410 photographs, and the 1950s, with 2,674. 61% of the Nizhny Novgorod photographs date from 1955 or later.
Open Nizhny Novgorod on the map
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The counts on this page are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 — credit Time Portal and link here. The photographs are not ours to license: they belong to their photographers and the archives that keep them.