Arsk Field (; ) was east of the walls of mediaeval

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

. The name may come from the

Archa Darugha The Archa Darugha () was a subdivision of the Kazan Khanate and the Kazan Uyezd in 16th–18th centuries. The center was the town of Archa. Its territory covered the basins of the Kazanka, Noqsa, Kinderle, Shapshe, Yamashirma, Norma, Kesmas ...

, a subdivision of the

Khanate of Kazan The Khanate of Kazan was a Tatar state that occupied the territory of the former Volga Bulgaria between 1438 and 1552. The khanate covered contemporary Tatarstan, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia, and parts of Udmurtia and Bashkortostan; ...

. Alternatively, it could be named for the road leading to the city of

Arsk Arsk ( rus, Арск, p=ˈarsk; ) is a town and the administrative center of Arsky District in Tatarstan, Russia, located on the Kazanka River, from the republic's capital of Kazan. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 18,114. E ...

, which passed through the field. In 1552 it served as the base of for Tatar troops during the

siege of Kazan The siege of Kazan or Fall of Kazan in 1552 was the final battle of the Russo-Kazan Wars and led to the fall of the Khanate of Kazan. Conflict continued after the fall of Kazan, however, as rebel governments formed in Çalım and Mişätamaq ...

by Russian troops under

Ivan the Terrible Ivan IV Vasilyevich (; – ), commonly known as Ivan the Terrible,; ; monastic name: Jonah. was Grand Prince of Moscow, Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia from 1533 to 1547, and the first Tsar of all Russia, Tsar and Grand Prince of all R ...

. In 1774, it was a battlefield for engagements between rebels supporting Pugachev and governmental forces. In the 18th and 19th centuries, a trade fair was held at the field. Since the beginning of the 19th century the field has been built up with housing, but the nearby forest was turned into parklands, nicknamed ''Russian Switzerland'' and ''German Switzerland''. During the Soviet period, both parks were subsumed by the newly created ''Gorky Park'', and the park carries that name to this day. After the 1917

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

the field was renamed Yershov Field, after Nikolay Yershov, who led the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

uprising in

during the

in 1917. To this day the street running alongside the park is named Yershov Street in his honor.Source: Walks about Kazan: Nikolay Yershov Street (

Accessed March 27, 2008

References

* Military history of Kazan Geography of Tatarstan {{Tatarstan-geo-stub