Of Names and Secrets

The unwary traveller will be confused by Nizhny Novgorod. The city was named “Gorky” in Soviet times in honour of Maksim Gorky, and – for reasons hard to fathom – it is still keeping that name in current Russian train timetables (the same happens to Ekaterinburg, which was called "Sverdlovsk" before 1991). Nizhny is probably not widely known abroad, even though it is the fourth largest city in Russia: this is partly due to the fact that it had been closed to foreign visitors (for “security reasons”) during Socialist times. Gorky – sorry, Nizhny – is a sprawling city of more than one million people, where you have to travel often one to two hours to come to the city centre from the suburbs (not like in any other Russian city it's very much different: here the distances are humongous, and several hours of daily commute are the norm).

The city centre is quite nice: stunning views of the river junction from the Kremlin and the surrounding areas, pretty little churches and most of all beautiful wooden houses still surviving here and there, despite the fact that most are in disrepair and some are abandoned due to fires. The gossip goes that several houses are burned on purpose, to sell the valuable ground sitting under them and make horrible new buildings; possibly the real estate bust has partially stopped this phenomenon.

Nizhny gave us the same impression of several other places in Russia – and probably elsewhere as well. A great amount of money was spent in areas directly related to commerce: sparkling malls, a very clean shopping street in the city centre, ads all over for global brands. On the other hand, very little of the money generated by the inevitable consequent sales seems to trickle in the places where public benefit would be served: for example, the main bridge connecting the two sides of the Oka was partially closed for repairs, but there had been nobody in sight to actually do the repairs for some time. Meanwhile, all the city had to pass through the other bridges, slowing down traffic and partially paralyzing the city.

Apart from that, our hosts gave us a wonderful tour of the city, and particularly broke our previous bad luck by introducing us to a drink made with vodka mixed with horseradish – which you feel in your throat and in your nose!