The Storage Tower is a round tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. It is located in the upper part between the Dmitrievskaya and Nikolskaya towers, near the beginning of the Zelensky descent. The constant use of the tower as a warehouse for military and civilian property determined its current name.

According to the Solikamsk chronicler, the tower was laid on September 1, 1500, and was designated as "Tverskaya." The only other known mention of this name is in the 1662 City Register: "Alekseevskaya — also Tverskaya." It is assumed that the name comes from the participation of craftsmen from Tver in its construction or alternatively from the word "tverd’" meaning "stronghold," "fortress." In the 16th–18th centuries, the tower was known as Alekseevskaya, named after the Church of Saint Metropolitan Alexei, built nearby (the church has not survived).

Since at the beginning of the 18th century the tower stored a large stock of artillery weapons and supplies, as well as stonemasons’ tools, it acquired its current name — "Storage." In the 18th–19th centuries, the tower was adapted as a warehouse; hence it also gained the name "Tseikhgausnaya" (from the German Zeughaus — "military warehouse").

The Storage Tower has four tiers. Since the internal ground level of the Kremlin here was 2–3 meters higher, the entrance to the tower is located at the level of the second tier. A moat 2–3 meters deep was dug in front of the tower. However, the lower tier’s chamber was further sunk below the moat’s bottom to half its height. The two lower tiers are covered with brick dome vaults, the upper one being taller. Each of these two tiers has only two side loopholes, allowing firing along the curtain walls ("for clearing"). There were no loopholes facing the field on these tiers on the tower itself (following the caponier method), but such loopholes exist at these levels in the casemates located nearby, in the curtain walls. The dead zone formed in front was covered by fire from the neighboring Dmitrievskaya and Nikolskaya towers. The third tier is equipped with one more loophole facing the field (three in total). It has an exit to the wall’s fighting gallery and a wooden ceiling. The fourth tier is the battlement with merlons. There are 12 merlons in total, with 11 large loopholes between them. Five merlons have small loopholes. There are no merlons on the rear side of the tower — there is a solid wall (currently with one window). The tower was covered by a typical wooden spire.

In 1621, the Storage Tower was armed with one copper hand cannon. In 1663, it had a "one-and-a-half" copper hand cannon "Kazan." In 1703, there was one "smoothbore hand cannon on a carriage" and two "hand cannons for firing from behind the fence," that is, large fortress rifles, also known as hook guns.

In 1785–1786, the loopholes of the third tier were enlarged. On the upper tier, windows were installed in three large loopholes, and the remaining openings were bricked up. In 1807, the tower was severely damaged by fire, after which its height was reduced by 70 centimeters. In 1834–1837, the tower was buried in earth by 2–2.5 meters due to the filling of the dry moat in front of the upper part of the Kremlin. In the 19th century, the lower, now underground, tier of the tower stored lamp oil used for lighting city streets. For ventilation of this chamber, semicircular wells covered with half-hipped roofs were installed at the junctions of the tower and walls. In the 19th century, the tower, like the entire Kremlin, was whitewashed with lime. Remnants of this are still visible, as well as the red plaster from the Soviet period on one of the adjacent curtain walls. In 1889, the tower’s premises housed an archive of documents collected by the Nizhny Novgorod Scientific Archival Commission. This archive was significantly damaged during the 1923 fire.

During the 1953 Kremlin restoration, the loopholes, merlons, roof, and damaged sections of the outer facing were restored. Additionally, the ventilation wells were restored and covered with iron mesh, allowing a view of the lower tier loopholes and the original ground level in front of the tower.

Since 1973, a tasting hall appeared in the lower tier of the tower, which later transformed into a historical café and then into the "Storage Tower" bar. The transfer of the tower to private ownership led to numerous distortions of its exterior and interior appearance: glazing of loopholes, polishing of brick walls, use of paint, installation of utilities, and creation of alien exterior decoration and interior. Over time, the bar also occupied the adjacent section of the fighting gallery. The area was fenced off, a ceiling was constructed, glazing installed, a bar counter appeared, and electrical equipment was added. As a result, the tower lost a significant part of its historical value.

Sources:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Tower