Getting to know Nizhny Novgorod

When coming to any city, no matter how progressive and fashionable you are, you cannot do without a traditional cultural programme and classic attractions. After all, you can’t go to Paris and not look at the Eiffel Tower, avert your eyes from the Colosseum in Rome, or walk past the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Nizhny Novgorod also has a fair number of places, without which it is unlikely that a trip to the city will be counted as having took place. At the very least, it is necessary to check the I Was Here box. We humbly present for your attention the most classic sights, without which Nizhny is not Nizhny.

If you ask a Nizhny Novgorod resident where the city centre is, then you will certainly be sent to Minin Square. And they won’t say anything about Pozharsky. Despite the fact that both our heroes participated in the militia, the zemstvo headman confidently leads the vocabulary of Nizhny Novgorod residents. But what can you do here? The Kremlin is located here (this is important), from here you can set off on a walk along Bolshaya Pokrovka (the main pedestrian street) or the Verkhne-Volzhskaya Embankment, throw a coin into the fountain to definitely return here, or take a picture with the monument to Minin. You can even do this twice, as there are two monuments.

The main attraction of the city is that no tourist route can do without visiting the Kremlin. There are a great deal of stories and legends associated with the thirteen towers of the Kremlin, and many of them will curdle the blood in your veins. How about the stories of a girl being buried alive here, or the hidden library of Ivan the Terrible? There are many administrative buildings, an open exhibition of military equipment, which children will certainly study closely, an Arsenal featuring modern art, and an Art Museum with more traditional works. For example, it is here that you can see Vasnetsov’s famous Magic Carpet, and Repin’s Timid Peasant. The main thing is that the Kremlin offers an incredible view of the confluence of the Volga and the Oka. It’s simply breathtaking!

The longest of the Volga shores is better admired, of course, from below, and even better from the water, so that you can appreciate the scale and shape of this grandiose structure. Nizhny Novgorod residents do not like to use it for its intended purpose, after all, 560 steps is no easy task, but tourists easily overcome such hardships, viewing some of Russia’s finest sunsets along the way, before heading back down to the Nizhne-Volzhskaya embankment, where it is so great to take a walk in any weather.

On Pokrovka it is delightful to take your time, listen to the street musicians, and pop into the cozy cafes, which can be found here at every turn. If you are heading from Minin Square towards Gorky, then along the way you will encounter important locations for the city: the Nizhny Novgorod Drama Theatre, the monument to the cheerful goat and to the actor Yevgeny Evstigneev (you certainly need to rub his nose and make a wish), while exactly in the middle of the street there is the handsome State Bank Building, an illuminated tramcar in honour of Russia’s first passenger tram lines, and then the old Eaglet cinema and the Puppet Theatre. Along the way, you must look out for the numerous sculptures that adorn Pokrovka: a policeman, a photographer, a boy with a dog, a shoe cleaner, a couple in love, and many others.

The State Bank building on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya is a veritable local Hogwarts, and one of the largest civilian buildings in Russia, where it is not so easy to get yourself on a tour. This is a wonderful example of the Neo-Russian style, a masterpiece that, along with the Stroganov Church, attracts connoisseurs of architecture to Nizhny Novgorod from far and wide. Today it houses the Volga-Vyatka Main Directorate of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.

Once one of the most important walking streets of the city, where, again, people admired the views of the river, along the way looking at the gorgeous Rukavishnikov estate, the Sirotkin mansion, and Kamensky house. Over the years, the embankment has lost popularity to the Nizhne-Volzhskaya, which is more fashionable and equipped, but it is still loved by the locals.

From here, everyone takes pictures of the famous Nizhny Novgorod sunsets, not forgetting to put the #capitalsofsunsets on social media. The views of the river, the Fair, the stadium, and the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, which open up from here, literally paralyse many tourists. For convenience, there are numerous benches, hammocks and cabins, from which it is even more pleasant to admire the confluence of the two rivers. What’s more, you will be in the good company of Maxim Gorky, whose monument is installed right there.

The main embankment of the city, following its large-scale landscaping, is an impressive place, with benches, an amphitheatre, and a comprehensive cultural program. A sensible alternative to Pokrovka and Rozhdestvenskaya — today, the townspeople, for the most part, prefer to take a walk here. In the summer evenings, it’s like Las Vegas — everything is bright and colourful, and there are a lot of children, cyclists and cheerful music. Here people dance, do yoga, and just watch the active life of the river.

The city’s main bar street, where many people go to do bar hopping, going to all the establishments in a row for cocktails and shorts. It all starts off at the noisy Herring and Coffee, near which hundreds of people may gather on the street in good weather, and ends up approximately in the Copper Pipes, a trendy bar where you must book a table and get there only by calling them on the telephone. Along the way, you will encounter the FUTURO gallery with its incredible interior, the landscaped Markin Square, the beautiful Stroganov Church, and numerous tourists on their wanderings.

In many ways, the Main Fair House is the same symbol of Nizhny Novgorod as the Kremlin. Thanks to the Fair, the city was called the «pocket of Russia», and for the 19th century, the Fair was the most important urban event, where merchants and traders gathered from all over the country. In the second half of the 20th century, the building housed the Children’s World toy shop, and then other small shops, and today you can visit the multimedia museum of the history of Russia here.

One of the most important city attractions is the local cable car, which has the longest unsupported span over the water in Europe, at just under a kilometre. From the cabins’ windows you can admire the 17th century Pechersk Monastery, the sunbathers along the Rowing Canal in summer, and the brave fishermen in winter. The road leads to the city of Bor, famous for its glass factory and the fact that Gorky and Chaliapin liked to relax here on the Mokhovy Mountains. Be prepared for incredible queues in the summer — there are plenty of people who want to ride this car. A one-way fare will set you back 100 rubles.

A fairly new attraction of the city is these openwork metal structures, originally part of the main exhibition pavilion of the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition, which was held in the city in 1896. They were not discovered until 2015, and potentially had to be demolished, but thanks to the broad support of the public they remained on the Strelka. The metal frames were freed from the brick walls and slate roofs, and today the Warehouses are as much a symbol of the city as a Fair or the Kremlin. This is one of the favourite places for the local townspeople, although for a long time many people did not even suspect their existence. Be sure to visit the local concert hall, on whose stage you can watch not only musical performances, but also study the historical part of the city, since one of the walls of the hall is panoramic glass and overlooks the Strelka.