A Trade Street of a Small Town as a Public Space(by the Example of Nizhny Novgorod Region)

Abstract

Located round Nizhny Novgorod one of thelarge commercial and industrial centres of the Povolzhie (the Volga region), these towns possess their own regional specific character determined by the historically developed trade and craft traditions. The location of the main trade street in the town generallayout its relation to the transportation scheme, its planning, housing, architectural dominants, transformations and losses, today's state are studied for each town. Various types of trade streets built in thelate XVIII - early XX centuries are shown: a street-corridor with straight tracing and continuous masonry housing (Gostinny Ryad street in Arzamas), a street with direct tracing and dispersed masonry and masonry-wooden housing (Bolshaya Sovetskaya street in lyskovo), a street with curved picturesque tracing and continuous masonry housing (Nizhegorodskaya street in Pavlovo), space formed by three streets with a multiraw arrangement of continuous masonry buildings (Gorky street Bolshoy Kirovskiy sezd Kooperativny sezd in Gorodets). Two types of today's existence of historically formed trade streets of a smalltown are revealed i.e. an active use (Arzamas, Pavlovo) and stagnation (Lyskovo, Gorodets).Main problems of trade streets' modern use and conditions under which these streets may become valuable public spaces in contemporary understanding of this meaning are identified based on studying historical-culturat natural-ecologicat social-economic, architectural and town-planning criteria of assessment of trade streets' viability in modern conditions and ascertaining potential of their development related to the high historical-cultural value of such complexes.