Nizhny Novgorod's Ancient Fossils: Shells and Corals on Kremlin and Metro Walls

You don«t have to go to a paleontological museum to see traces of ancient animals. Fossils can also be found in Nizhny Novgorod — for example, on the walls of the Kremlin and the metro station. We show what shells and corals that are millions of years old look like.

We took the information about the fossils from the guidebook of the Nizhny Novgorod Museum-Reserve. Its compilers are Galina Shalfitskaya and Alexander Varenov, staff of the nature department. In the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, we remind, there is an excursion called «Traces of Vanished Worlds» dedicated to the inhabitants of ancient seas.

The First Nizhny Novgorod Residents

The memorial sign appeared near the Ivanovskaya Tower in 1976. The stone composition shows a symbolic image of the faces of the first settlers and an inscription: «And they will build a stone city at the mouth of the Oka River, and it will be very strong, and enemy forces will not overcome it.»

If you look closely, you can see a cluster of fossilized remains of marine organisms in the limestone. The imprints of a mollusk shell are clearly visible.

The Spring on Ivanovsky Descent

The area around the spring was developed in 1985, using limestone and rubble stone. On it, you can find traces of various ancient inhabitants, including solitary rugose corals and sea urchins.

Zachatyevskaya Tower

It was destroyed by a landslide at the end of the 19th century, and the tower was recreated in 2012. Now it is a museum space and a real «exhibition» of fossils. On the walls of the Zachatyevskaya Tower, one can see

• fusulinids (single-celled organisms in the form of grains);

• rugose coral (a solitary coral);

• eomphalus (a gastropod mollusk with a shell in the form of a flat spiral about 10 cm in size);

• bellerophon (also a gastropod mollusk, but smaller);

• sea urchins (animals whose body is covered with a shell with spines, fossils look like white stripes);

• brachiopods (animals with bivalve shells).

Note that all these fossils date back to the Carboniferous period (more than 299 million years ago).

The Kremlin Wall

Traces of ancient inhabitants — brachiopods, sea urchins, and other animals — can be found on the walls of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. We took these photos near the Governor«s Garden.

Arsenal

It is also worth examining the walls of the exhibition space «Arsenal» in the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. There you can find traces of single-celled fusulinids, fragments of mollusk shells, and brachiopods.

Gorkovskaya Station

Fossils have been incorporated into the interior of the Gorkovskaya metro station in the center of Nizhny Novgorod. On the slabs, you can see traces of animals such as fusulinids, rugose coral, brachiopods, sea lilies, and chaetetids (a marine sponge).

We described the above-mentioned ancient animals in more detail in a separate article.