Z. Tusnolobova-Marchenko (1920-1980)
Nizhne-Pokrovskaya Street is one of the oldest streets in Polotsk. Historical sources confirm its existence already in the second half of the 11th — beginning of the 12th century. From the 13th century the street was densely populated, served as one of the main streets in the city, it was crossed by the Dvina River to the city markets, churches, synagogues, Catholic and Orthodox monasteries were located on it, the richest and most influential citizens lived there.
The first known name of this street was Velikaya Street. In the last quarter of the 18th century (in connection with the construction of St. Pokrovskaya Church) it was renamed into Nizhne-Pokrovskaya Street, in 1919 — into Lenin Street, and in 2008 the street again returned the name Nizhne-Pokrovskaya. It received its current direction in accordance with the classicist plan of Polotsk developed and approved in the late 18th century, which gave the layout of the historical center of the city the features of regularity.
House No. 34 on Nizhne-Pokrovskaya Street is one of the few surviving examples of wooden residential buildings of the first post-war decade (1944-1954).
It should be noted that for many centuries the territory of the modern house location was an important part of the development of Nizhne-Pokrovskaya Street and was densely occupied. It is known that in the 16th-18th centuries the area of the modern house No. 34 was surrounded on the southern and eastern sides by a precipice of the coastline, where the mouth of the moat and the southern part of the Velikiy Posad fortifications (fortress wall with towers) were located. In the middle of the 19th century there was a large estate on this site, which belonged to Polotsk burgher Zalman Barkan. A large wooden house on a stone semi-basement and numerous outbuildings were erected here.
By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War there was a wooden dwelling in the area of the modern house No. 34, which was lost during the hostilities and restored to its existing form in the first post-war years.
From March 15, 1955 to March 18, 1976 a famous Polotsk woman — Zinaida Tusnolobova-Marchenko — participant of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, Honorary Citizen of Polotsk — lived in house No. 34. Polotsk, who for eight months at the front in the rank of Guards Medical Sergeant carried 123 wounded from the battlefield. Tusnolobova-Marchenko was the third Soviet nurse to be awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal (1965). It is important to note that it was in the existing house in 1957 that Zinaida was awarded the gold star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.