Qualla: Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Nizhny Novgorod

Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Nizhny Novgorod: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Torin-ru, Public domain. Moscow has the original. Nizhny Novgorod has the story. The bronze figures of Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky stand on National Unity Square, beneath the walls of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, near the Church of St. John the Baptist. The statue is a copy of the famous monument on Red Square, and it is five centimeters smaller than the Moscow version. But the history it commemorates belongs to this city first -- because it was here, in 1611, that a butcher rallied a nation.

Image: Torin-ru | Public domain

Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Nizhny Novgorod: The Butcher's Call to Arms

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Алексей Трефилов, CC BY-SA 4.0. The early 17th century was the Time of Troubles, a period of famine, civil war, and foreign invasion that nearly destroyed the Russian state. Polish-Lithuanian forces had occupied Moscow. The Tsardom of Russia was fragmenting. In Nizhny Novgorod, a zemstvo elder named Kuzma Minin...

Image: Алексей Трефилов | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Nizhny Novgorod: Liberation and Memory

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Алексей Трефилов, CC BY-SA 4.0. The militia marched on Moscow and, on October 22, 1612 (November 4 by the modern calendar), drove the Polish garrison from the capital. It was a turning point that preserved Russian sovereignty and eventually led to the founding of the Romanov dynasty. The original monument to Mi...

Image: Алексей Трефилов | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Nizhny Novgorod: The Copy Comes Home

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alexxx1979, CC BY-SA 4.0. Nearly four centuries after Minin's appeal, the city finally got its statue. In 2004, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov commissioned the renowned Georgian-Russian sculptor Zurab Tsereteli to create a copy of the Red Square monument for Nizhny Novgorod. On November 4, 2005 -- the newly es...

Image: Alexxx1979 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Nizhny Novgorod: Five Centimeters of Difference

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Siverec, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Nizhny Novgorod monument is five centimeters smaller than the Red Square original, and the inscriptions on the pedestals differ. These are the only material distinctions. In every other way, the two figures of Minin and Pozharsky are identical: the butcher gesturing urgently ...

Image: Siverec | CC BY-SA 4.0