During my first
year in Moscow, Claire and I went to Nizhny Novgorod for a weekend,
for two reasons. First, it was home to another branch of the school
we work for in Moscow. Second, it was going to be one of the host
cities for the 2018 World Cup.
That trip was at
the very end of March, beginning of April, and when we left, we were
not big fans of the city. We knew that part of it was because we
visited at an ugly time of year. Winter was over, but the city hadn't
yet been cleaned up, and all the beauty of spring hadn't yet arrived.
I couldn't help but
wonder if the reason we didn't like the city was because of
circumstances that could change, so I decided to go back this fall.
My train arrived on
time, of course, at the ridiculously annoying hour of 0430. That's
too early to wake up, but too late to stay awake all night, argh.
Anywho, I sat in the train station for around three hours, because
walking at that hour did not sound fun.
I don't know if any
renovations had been done on the train station in the past two years,
but it didn't feel like the interior of the station was the same as
when Claire and I visited. There was a giant Lenin mosaic on one wall
in a large hall, which seems like something I would've noticed last
time.
Maybe we just missed that hall last time, I've been known to be
really close to something and completely miss it.
The view upon
leaving the train station was the same, just at a warmer time of
year. When I turned my head around, the outside of the train station
looked the same as I remembered, not very interesting.
Since I was
traveling by myself in a place I remembered not liking very much, I'd
made a tentative itinerary for the day. I decided to start my trip by
returning to Bor, the town on the other side of the river. Claire and
I had gone to Bor out of curiosity about riding on the cable car,
more than a desire to see the town.
I wanted to find out if there was
anything we'd missed seeing.
The walk to get to
the cable car station from the train station was long, especially
because I stopped regularly to take photos. The weather in Nizhny had
already started to change, so there were plenty of orange and yellow
trees, everything was beautiful. Walking over the main bridge was
still really windy, but it was worth stopping to take a few photos.
I got off course
even before getting to the bridge, I went to see a church Claire and
I had skipped. The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral sits on the right bank
of the river, not too far from the new football stadium. The outside
was yellow and had a typical orthodox 'look' to it. The inside was
awesome, I'm glad I went inside. The entire interior was painted with
frescoes, and the iconostasis up front was wood with colourful icons.
The side iconostases were also wood, and also awesome. There were
quite a few people inside the church, so I didn't get to take all the
photos I wanted, but I definitely appreciated what I was seeing.
After crossing the
river I walked partway on the boardwalk, which had been finished
since Claire and I were there. Just about anything looks better than
a construction zone, but the finished product really does look nice.
That being said, it's still pretty windy, that wasn't any different.
I also stepped off
the walking route to see another tree, this one had also been under
renovation when Claire and I had seen it. The inside of this church
was really boring, and not worth seeing, but the onion domes outside
were really colourful. Almost like a baker had been able to play with
ganache to create different patterns.
When I finally got
to the cable car station I'd already walked well over seven
kilometers, in a bit over two hours. The ride still cost just 100
rubles each way, which is a great price for a 15 minute ride.
Lenin was still
where I remembered him being in Bor, as was the WW2 memorial. Instead
of going straight back to the cable car, I walked a bit further in
town, just to see what was there. I found a small monastery with
bright gold domes on the main church, and back roads that looked like
they'd been paved a loooong time ago with no upkeep since.
I also found the
main intersection in the middle of town. There was a local market on
one side, with plenty of produce, dairy, shoes, plants, etc...
available. Anything I might've wanted, but I didn't need anything.
Except some of the
baked goods I found in a small bakery. I definitely needed those. ;)
There was also a
church on that intersection, and a big supermarket. Overall, it was a
great place to stand around and just watch people.
After that
intersection I found my way back to the cable car and headed back
over the river. From there I walked to my hostel and checked in,
another long-ish walk.
I guess I hadn't paid enough attention to the
map when I made the booking, but oh well.
After resting up
for a while I walked back out to see at least one more museum. I
headed to one of several Gorky related museums in town, only to
discover that it was under renovation, argh. There was a sign on the
door pointing me to another museum, one that I ended up liking
probably better than what I'd intended to see in the first place.
The museum I did
see was an apartment in which Russian writer Maxim Gorky had lived
with his family for a while.
It was neat to see the different rooms,
their furniture and interior decoration. Again with the awful
wallpaper, yuck. Women did not get to wear comfortable clothing.
There were also informational signs all around, which were
conveniently in several languages.
After leaving the
apartment museum, I realized I had time for yet another museum, this
one a history museum. Officially called the Nizhny Novgorod State
Museum of History and Architecture, this one was in a renovated
mansion.
I wouldn't say mansion, I'd say former palace, but I'm not
the one who decides the specific wording used.
This museum
required visitors to wear shoe covers, something I find incredibly
wasteful. The weather was good, so no one was going to track in dirt,
and these plastic shoe covers don't prevent the damage done by women
wearing heels on a wooden floor.
The museum had a
fair number of grand rooms with amazing ceilings and chandeliers, as
well as intricate wooden floors.
I liked the rooms with old school
furniture, I did not like the old school wallpaper. I loved the old
school pajamas, I did not love the fake fruit on one of the tables.
After leaving the
museum I made my way to the main pedestrian street in the city. I
went back to a burger restaurant I remembered from my last visit,
which was good, and so much cheaper than it would've been in Moscow.
I also went back to the cafe I remembered from our last visit,
because of my memory of a really good chocolate cheesecake.
Why mess
with something that wasn't broken?
The next morning I
woke up to rain. Argh. I packed up and waited around for it to get
better, but it didn't. Because of the lousy weather (hard rain, cold
wind, dark clouds,) I didn't do much during the second day of this
visit. I kept finding ways to take cover: in supermarkets, churches,
archways into courtyards, etc... The rain finally let up after dark,
go figure.
Instead of
wandering around the city like I'd wanted to do, I killed a lot of
time in the burger place from the night before, then more time in the
coffee place.
Is there such a thing as too much chocolate cheesecake?
I don't think so ;)
I finally left the
cafe, and made my way to the metro, riding the entire length of one
of the two lines Nizhny Novgorod has. Just like Moscow, all of the
stations were clean. Just like Moscow, a few of the stations were
really well decorated and designed, and the others were boring but
still nice. The biggest difference I noticed was in the time of how often trains came through each station, as it wasn't nearly as often in Nizhny Novgorod as it was in the other three cities I'd seen.
Since I've seen the
metro systems in St Petersburg and Moscow and Novosibirsk, so it was
neat to have another comparison to add to the list. Russia does metro
systems really really well.
My train back to
Moscow went as expected. Will I return to Nizhny? Probably not. Even
so, the dream of a full weekend with good weather is going to stick
in my mind for a while, hahaha.
No comments:
Post a Comment