The town was founded in 1152 by Prince
Yury Dolgoruky (also the founder of
Moscow) as a large fortress on the
Volga River, the first Russian fortress in today's
Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. It was a starting point for numerous campaigns of the princes of
Vladimir and Suzdal against
Volga Bulgaria. In 1216,
Yury II of Vladimir was dethroned by his brother and exiled here. In 1239, the town was burned to the ground by
Batu Khan's army. Folk tradition identifies Gorodets with Little
Kitezh, a legendary town destroyed by the
Mongols. In 1263,
Alexander Nevsky died in Gorodets on his way back to
Novgorod from the
Golden Horde. His son,
Andrey, made the town his chief residence. A famous medieval icon-painter,
Prokhor, was born there. In the mid-14th century, the town was overshadowed by the neighboring
Nizhny Novgorod but continued as the third largest town of the
Principality of Nizhny Novgorod-Suzdal until 1408, when
Edigu razed it to the ground. For two following centuries the town was known as
Gorodets Pustoy (i. e., "Gorodets the Empty"). Some chronicles state that its entire population moved slightly downstream and resettled at Salt-on-Gorodets (today's
Balakhna). By the 19th century, Gorodets was revived as a prosperous village settled by
Old Believer merchants and reputed for its decorative
handicrafts, such as
wood carving and
painting. In 1875, the Nizhny Novgorod writer A. S. Gatsisky described Gorodets as a major center of trade in
grain and wooden
kitchenware. In 1922, Gorodets becomes a town again, as well the administrative center of
Gorodetsky Uyezd (later, Gorodetsky District). Between 1948 and 1959, the dam of Gorky Hydroelectric Station (now
Nizhny Novgorod Hydroelectric Station) was built a few kilometers upstream from Gorodets, and along with the station a new industrial town,
Zavolzhye, was built on the right side of the Volga. In the past, the town was also sometimes referred to as
Gorodets-Radilov (), or simply
Radilov. ==Administrative and municipal status==