Every so often, I come across a few small details about a city that I am in and have a hard time fitting that “thing” into a bigger narrative thus finding it difficult to write an entire post about it. This means that sometimes a lot must remain untold due to me not being able to find a decent formula to share them with my dear readers. This ends today. In this small article, I will be covering a few interesting bits and pieces about the great city of Nizhny Novgorod, stuff that you may or may not be able to find out about so easily without coming here yourself.
“Extreme Sports” on the Chkalov Stairs
It is no secret that leading a healthy lifestyle full of sports is something that has been promoted quite heavily during the Soviet times. This veneration of sports continues to this day in most parts of the country. Although the vast majority of people that one sees wondering around on a Sunday morning seems to be those that are walking their dogs around the cities’ many beautiful parks, it is also quite easy to run into many that are jogging around. For some denizens of the city though, this is not much of a challenge. They want, nay, they need something more! Walking up the 560 steps that Chkalov Stairs offers is a good start on paper, but why walk when you can JUMP your way to Kremlin? Yes, you read that right. If it is not winter, and if the weather allows it, you will see a lot of people who jump their way up the Chkalov Stairs and do it in a way that makes it all look so easy for others… As someone who opted for walking an extra six kilometres and taking a far less steep way up the hill than to walk up the stairs quite a few times, I was shocked to see those that could just so effortlessly do acrobatics on this ridiculously long staircase. It reminded me once again that I need to get in shape, and that walking around aimlessly for tens of kilometres a day is not cutting it at all. Though a video would show what I try to describe here more easily, here goes a photo for you fine folks. A careful eye can detect a few “jumpers” among the crowd but do know that there were times when up to twenty people (some holding hands and/or carrying weights for the added challenge) were jumping around at the same time.
An 800-Year-Old City
Having been founded in 1221, the city of Nizhny Novgorod is quite old by most standards. It has been around for a staggering 800 years in the year of 2021 which was a cause of celebrations and a massive city-wide renovation campaign that lasts to this day. Parks have seen most welcome improvements, most roads were re-built, new buildings and monuments were erected for the occasion, and even some tiles on the streets were changed with those writing 1221 on them to commemorate the event. It was an amazing opportunity for the more creative industries of the city to partake in and get some tax money flowing their way for a change. One of the lesser visible yet interesting additions to the city was the introduction of what I would like to call “egg-watches” to many different parts of the town. These contraptions are a nod to the timelessness of an 800-year-old city. The one below can be seen in the wonderful Switzerland Park, but I have seen around five of these scattered all around and as such it should not be a hassle to find at least one of them during your own travels in Nizhny.
Remembrance of the Fallen
Nizhny Novgorod truly tries hard to make sure that quite a sizable portion of the cities’ former denizens are remembered quite well into the future. Anyone from martyrs of the Great Patriotic War (a.k.a. the Second World War) to designers of cutting-edge Soviet inventions are honoured by plaques on the walls of the apartments in which they lived or schools where they studied. There are hundreds if not thousands of these commemorative tablets all around the city, with a clear concentration of them in the more central parts. Not only Soviet but also some Tsarist and even a few modern “Russians of importance” can be seen being honoured around the city, which sort of turns a simple walk in the town to one that feels like strolling in a massive graveyard. As I finish writing yet another article that I truly hope you enjoyed reading, what follows are merely two examples of this extremely popular phenomenon just to give you an idea of what exactly do they often look like.
