Nizhny Novgorod Enters List of Russia’s Top Tourist Cities - Coffee With Herring Dish Changes Everything
Nizhny Novgorod is now in the top 5 of Russian cities where tourists want to stay a little longer. We continue the series of reports about the most popular and creative Russian cities.
Leonid Muravyov reporting from Nizhny Novgorod.
Nizhny Novgorod: A creative city.
Nizhny Novgorod has been closed to foreign tourists for many years. Now, the city is busy catching up to what it was missing. There are so many hotels and cafes, that people have started to approach the business creatively. The names alone count for a lot. Sometimes, the syllable stress is important. "Sem sOrok" or "Sem sorOk"? Some letters on the signs are changed for pictures, and some names resemble a rebus. And they do serve herring with coffee here.
- Right now our herring smells like printer ink.
The free newspaper about city life, "Selyodka" was in circulation before the cafe existed, which was named after it. The dishes here are also very creative.
- This dessert is called "Dubovy list", we pick the oak leaves ourselves.
- The leaf is also edible?
- Of course.
- Tasty!
There are many creative sculptures in the city, but the "Koza" is the most popular, especially among children. The story of the sculpture is connected to the emblem of the region. There is a noble deer, here is a merry goat. Vladimir Sidorov, the sculptor, has a no less ironic story.
Vladimir Sidorov: "There is a Russian proverb: "Sidorov's goat". So I decided to make my own goat".
Nizhny Novgorod is a city of contrasts. Here, the modern high-rises of concrete and glass stand alongside wooden, sometimes rather dilapidated buildings. But each of them has its own history, which the local artists decided to show and tell. The old house on Nesterov street has been set on fire several times. The lot where it stands is very expensive because it's the very center of the city. Local artists came to rescue. With the owner's consent, they painted it and now it's a work of art, though of street art.
Artiom Filatov, organizer of the street art festival "Novy gorod, Drevny": "Stas Dobry decided to paint napkins, and Timofey Rady wrote quotes from "Confessions" by Saint Augustine".
The house was named "Lace of memory" and the inspired artists continued to create. One should walk all around downtown to see all their works. One of them even created an interactive map.
Artiom Filatov: “There are more than 180 objects by completely different artists. And people, even tourists, without any help from a professional guide can view the street art in Nizhny Novgorod for themselves and how it's connected to the city's history. The aim of our project is to create an app, containing all of the important pieces of Nizhny Novgorod street art. Through this project we wish to prove, that graffiti is nowhere near an act of vandalism".
The fate of the armory building has also been determined creatively. Where the military once stored ammunition, there is a modern art museum today.
Alisa Savitskaya, head of the museum's arts programs department: "Our visitors love and appreciate the place, not only for the art exhibited here but also for the atmosphere of history, the historic walls, which we can see all around us".
The "Arsenal" is one of the most popular museums in Nizhny Novgorod because the most creative ideas from the whole country are exhibited here.
Leonid Muravyov, Anton Kalmykov, Igor Senurin, "Vesti", Nizhny Novgorod.