A 1221 fortress town once raised an army that freed Moscow
Nizhny Novgorod—Gorky from 1932 to 1990—stands at the Oka–Volga confluence as oblast capital and Volga Federal District seat. Prince George II of Vladimir founded it on 4 February 1221; in 1612 Minin and Pozharsky organized a liberation force for Moscow.
Nizhny Novgorod, often just Nizhny, stands where the Oka flows into the Volga in central Russia, 420 km east of Moscow. It is capital of its oblast and of the Volga Federal District, Russia's sixth-largest city with over 1.2 million residents and about 1.7 million in the wider urban area, and the country's main base for river tourism. Its name began as simply Novgorod, Newtown; to tell it apart from the older Veliky Novgorod to the west it became the Novgorod of the lower lands, lower because it lies downstream of Moscow, Vladimir and Murom, even though it actually sits higher above sea level.
Prince George II of Vladimir, also known as Yuri II, founded a wooden hillfort here on 4 February 1221, using the two rivers as a natural moat. It remained Russia's easternmost settlement until Kurmysh was founded in 1372. Mordvin forces under Purgaz attacked in April 1229 and were driven off, but after Yuri died at the Battle of the Sit River on 4 March 1238 the Mongols took the fort. In 1612 the merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky raised an army here that freed Moscow from Polish and Lithuanian occupation.
By 1817 it had become one of the empire's great trading centres, and in 1896 it hosted an All-Russia Exhibition. From 1932 to 1990 it carried the name Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, who was born there. The Soviet era made it an industrial powerhouse built around the Gorky Automobile Plant, earning it the nickname Russian Detroit, and its metro opened in 1985. In 2016 a new air-defence plant belonging to Almaz-Antey opened in the city.
The Kremlin, the historic core, still houses the main offices of both the city and the federal district. Locals are Nizhegorodians; calling them Novgorodians is wrong, since that term belongs to Veliky Novgorod. The city was one of the hosts of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Source: Nizhny Novgorod
