The White Tower is a round tower located in the lower mountain area between the Ivanovskaya and Zachatyevskaya towers.

The White Tower is a round tower of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, located in the lower part between the Ivanovskaya and Zachatyevskaya towers, opposite the turn of the Kremlin descent, and is the only surviving round tower in the lower part of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. It dates back to the 16th century. It was rebuilt in 1620. The tower received its modern name in the 19th century due to the preserved white stone cladding of the lower part of the outer facade. However, there is another reason for its name. It was built in the 16th century on monastery lands. At that time, these lands were called "white" in contrast to the peasant "black" lands. While the latter were taxed, the "white" lands were completely exempt from taxes.

Supporting this version is the location near the White Tower of the Simeon Stylites Monastery. The monastery was destroyed in a fire in the 18th century, but the tower also acquired a second name – Simeonovskaya. In the 17th–18th centuries, it was called Simeonovskaya, after the Simeon Monastery located nearby inside the Kremlin. Later, a church of the same name was built here, which has also not survived to this day (it was demolished in 1928), but in 2020–2021, for the anniversary of Nizhny Novgorod, it was restored on its historic site.

In 1889, the tower was adapted to serve as the archive of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Scientific Archival Commission. The loopholes of the middle tiers were converted into rectangular windows. In 1923, the White Tower burned inside along with the archival documents stored there, but the structural elements of the tower did not suffer serious damage.

The White Tower is round and four-tiered. Originally, it had the usual construction for the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin, but with somewhat thinner walls on the upper tiers, which affected the design of the inter-tier transitions. The tower has two entrances — to the first tier from ground level and from the combat walkway of the wall (with a separate staircase leading to the fourth tier of the tower). From the "Pistsovaya Book" of 1622, it is known that there were three loopholes in each of the two tiers, which may have been an error.

Later (presumably in 1620), the tower, the only one in the Kremlin, was partially reconstructed according to the fortification trend of the second half of the 16th century, emphasizing more intensive fan-shaped firing from towers. At this time, the third tier of the tower received seven evenly spaced narrow brick loopholes. The second tier had six loopholes, arranged two on each of the three sides of the newly appeared square internal chamber. Sources say nothing about the loopholes of the first, white-stone tier of this period. On the upper level of the tower, "battle with battlements," the usual Kremlin system of large and small combat windows remained.

By the mid-17th and early 18th centuries, the tower was in a state of disrepair; buttresses were added, and it was repaired. At that time (by 1765), all vaults were lost. At the end of the 18th century, the tower was repaired and adapted for civilian use.

During the restoration of the 1950s–1960s, the condition of the White Tower’s second stage was partially restored. Seven loopholes reappeared on the third tier, the second tier received only one side window, and the first remained blind (with a hole). The tower’s tent roof was crowned with a gilded spire with a weather vane in the shape of a pennant.

There are several legends about the White and Zachatyevskaya towers.

That summer, when the Grand Duke of Moscow decided to surround Nizhny Novgorod with a stone wall, brave young men from Novgorod’s ushkuyniks languished in the dungeons of Nizhny Novgorod, along with their compatriot Danilo Volokhovets. As a very young lad in Veliky Novgorod, he worked on building the Detinets — he cut stones, carried bricks, mixed lime, and became a master. When the Detinets was built, he learned other crafts from foreign masters and became skilled in many things — forging swords, casting bells, building stone chambers, and repairing sea vessels. Danilo Volokhovets was so clever and quick-witted that he picked up the speech of foreign guests who came to Novgorod on trade matters. Suddenly, a change came in Volokhovets’s life. He decided to go with the Novgorod ushkuyniks to the Volga, to see the free world, to experience a different life. Ushkuyniks were loyal but reckless fellows; befriending them was like playing "heads or tails": either eagle or payment and retribution! That’s how it turned out for Volokhovets. They were caught by the prince’s guards and ended up in the dungeons of Nizhny Novgorod. For almost a year, the brave men sat in the cells, seeing no sun, tormented by thirst and hunger. Fortunately, kind people threw them alms through the bars. But one day, the heavy doors swung open, and all prisoners were thrown out into freedom:

- Hey, come out into the light, you wild bloods!

The exhausted Novgorodians poured out of the stone tower and followed the guards to dig deep moats on the high hills, cut stones, carry bricks, lay fortress walls, and raise towers to the very skies. Soon the voivode Volynets, servant of the great prince, realized that it was pointless to keep the Novgorod young men in dungeons; they should have been assigned to fortress work long ago — they were so skillful and nimble! And the first among them was Danilo Volokhovets. The voivode promised to release all Novgorodians for excellent work and appointed Volokhovets as chief master over the entire group of stonemasons.

For more than one summer, the Novgorodians worked hand in hand with the native Nizhny Novgorod people. They built firmly and solidly, not with simple masonry but with cross masonry, and they slaked lime so cleverly and skillfully that it bound stone and brick tightly. The Russian people knew and knew how to build the Kremlin against enemies: slowly but reliably, for ages to come!

Then the Grand Duke Vasily thought that the Nizhny fortress was being built too slowly. So he sent to Nizhny Novgorod an Italian craftsman and fortress master, Petruha Francesco, with assistant Giovanni Tatti. Both arrived dressed in foreign style, with strange caps, cloaks, and swords, like real warriors.

Master Petro Francesco was liked by all Russians; they immediately recognized him as a man of great spirit and skill. But his assistant, Giovanni Tatti, was a real thug, a foreign braggart and bully. At the slightest provocation, he grabbed his little sword, looking for a quarrel or fight. He only knew fortress work by hearsay and had never laid a single brick with his own hands. For all his tricks and antics, the Russians twisted his name into their own tongue — Zhevany Tat (Chewed Thief).

At that time, a beautiful girl lived on the upper posad, with dark eyes and thick braids, and when she smiled, it was like a pink bud opening. Her name was Nastasia, but she was nicknamed Gorozhanochka (Townswoman). She was over twenty but was in no hurry to marry and joked:

- My beloved won’t take me, and I won’t go for the unloved — I won’t be a spinster forever!

She lived quietly with her mother, working honestly. Often she went down the hill for water, and each time the stonemasons from the fortress winked at her, called her "berry," and invited her to the wall. But the berry was no fool; she answered smartly and boldly. Even Petro Francesco admired Gorozhanochka, adjusting his cap on his bald head, twisting his mustache, and, holding his sword, paced along the wall like a crane. And his assistant Zhevany Tat, seeing Nastasia, pretended to be kind and tried to make his idol-like face look angelic.

They did not know, those foreign fools, and no one else guessed that Nastasia Gorozhanochka often came by the walls to water the working group. Long ago, through the dungeon bars, she had exchanged kind words with Danilo Volokhovets.

"If I gain freedom, I will call you my wife!"

— Danilo once said to her from the dungeon window. And now, sparing no effort, he served the Moscow prince, hoping to live to the promised freedom.

Spring and spring holidays were approaching. For the day of the Conception feast, the people of Nizhny Novgorod timed the laying of three Kremlin towers at once: Boris and Gleb, Zachatyevskaya, and White Stone, along with the entire wall between them. They dug pits and moats, cut white stone, brought piles of bricks, slaked lime in clay pits. And on the day of the Immaculate Conception, all Nizhny Novgorod residents gathered for a prayer service. Bells rang from churches, icons were carried out, and at the front, on white linen towels, was the icon of the Mother of God.

All the Kremlin workers, common people and nobles alike, bared their heads and bowed. At the end of the prayer, the people of Nizhny Novgorod began to take off their crosses and throw them into the bottoms of the pits so that the towers and walls of the Kremlin would stand forever, resisting enemy sieges and assaults. Nastasia Gorozhanochka approached the pit, unbuttoned the buttons on her chest, took off her little golden cross from her neck, and threw it into the pit.

Then Zhevany Tat suddenly appeared, wriggling around the girl like an eel, hugging her and looking under her unbuttoned blouse. He even began to kiss and caress her in front of everyone. The townswoman was shocked but soon came to her senses and slapped the scoundrel hard across the face. Giovanni Tatti stumbled back and fell into the pit, becoming a laughingstock for all Nizhny Novgorod. He fell but could not get out, angry and cursing in a foreign tongue: "Oh, Madonna putana!"

Danilo Volokhovets saw and heard everything, and his heart could not bear it. He jumped to the pit, pulled Zhevany by the hand, and immediately, without delay, struck him on one cheek and then the other, teaching him sense and reason: "To you, she is a whore, but to us, an honest mother!" Tatti was ashamed to be beaten in public and grabbed his sword. But Danilo skillfully caught his hands, and when the sword fell, he grabbed it in a handful against his opponent. Then the Novgorodian groaned from unbearable pain but lifted the villainous Italian and threw him into the pit with boiling lime. He himself, like a chopped oak, slowly bent to the ground. People ran to the pit to pull out Giovanni Tatti, but it took a long time. Danilo lay breathless, with a foreign knife in his ribs.

The people of Nizhny Novgorod mourned and lamented, and the women wailed. Nastasia Gorozhanochka stood aside, silently bathing her kerchief in burning tears. The chief master Petro Francesco’s face grew pale. He pitied his compatriot, the mischievous Tatti, but grieved even more for the Russian master Danilo Volokhovets. They spoke with the voivode and ordered that both killers be buried in the pits under the towers. The people of Nizhny Novgorod left the prayer service in a somber mood.

It was an ill omen at the laying of the towers. The Kremlin walls, descending so close to the Volga, would not stand long. The stonemasons reluctantly took up the lime in which the godless Italian had boiled. Danilo Volokhovets’s team worked silently, erecting a tower-monument over their comrade’s grave. They carried all the white stone from the Volga shore with their own hands, mixed the lime in their own way in the pit, and worked fiercely, sparing no effort.

With each day and hour, a majestic and stern tower grew by the Volga. All the remaining white stone was used for it, and the people called it the White Stone Tower. To the south of it, another tower of blood-red brick grew, the Zachatyevskaya Tower. Under it lay the braggart and blasphemer Tatti. The living people, like ants, climbed the walls, carried bricks, stones, and lime, and built the walls with great faith that they would stand for ages, unconquered by any elements or troubles.

And Nastasia Gorozhanochka did not forget her Danilo Volokhovets; her love for him and hatred for the villain Giovanni Tatti did not fade. Year after year, in all weather, every evening she went out to the slope by the White Stone Tower and quietly sang her song. The Volga and the Dyatlov Hills listened to that song but remained silent. They were silent until the time when inscrutable fate, which knows all the truth of life, would soon reveal it.

Many years later, as if fulfilling Gorozhanochka’s will, underground waters undermined the slope of the hill along with the fortress and the Zachatyevskaya Tower, causing them to slide down to the Volga in a landslide. But the White Stone Tower was left untouched, standing as a monument over the grave of the master who built the Nizhny fortress.

Sources:

Sergey Vasilyevich Afonshin: Tales and Stories of the Nizhny Novgorod Land (The Tale of the White Stone Tower)

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Белая_башня_(Нizhny_Novgorod)