11 unusual sights of Nizhny Novgorod

Each city of Russia with its unique history has its own special sights – these are unusual museums, buildings with unique architecture, interesting and sometimes strange monuments, mysterious places covered with local legends, and modern objects surprising with design and purpose. … Nizhny Novgorod with its centuries-old history was no exception, and we present to your attention its unusual sights, which are rather difficult to get around on foot, so if you are a guest in this beautiful city, of rental cars in Nizhny Novgorod for you will be a great solution.
Locomotive Museum and Electric Transportation Museum
Although these two different museums are quite far from each other, we decided to combine them, since they are similar in subject matter. These open-air museums will be very interesting for children, and especially for boys, because there absolutely everything you can touch, touch them, go inside, you can sit in the driver’s booth and imagine for a minute that you are driving a huge car rails, or climb to the very top of a steam locomotive, imagining himself a Western hero stalking villains, or try yourself as a tram driver or trolley bus carrying passengers.
Shchelokovsky farm
A unique opportunity to stroll through the old Russian village will give the Museum of wooden architecture. It is located on the outskirts of the city and is called Shchelokovsky farm. Exhibits for him were collected throughout the Nizhny Novgorod region – this is the peasant hut, decorated with intricate carvings, and churches, whose age is in the centuries, and outbuildings, and a well, and a bath, there is even a windmill and water mill. Surprisingly, all these buildings were built without a single nail!
Inside all the buildings, the old interiors have been completely recreated, so it is easy to imagine how our ancestors lived in the XVII-XIX centuries. It will be especially interesting to visit the little village on some holiday – then the quiet streets are filled with people dressed in national costumes, and the feeling of being in the past does not leave for a minute.
Monument “Merry Goat”
An unusual monument – the sculpture “Merry Goat” – greets guests at the Theater Square in Novgorod. Concerning the appearance of a funny goat in the town square there are two versions. One of them is connected with theatrical skits, which are held annually in Nizhny Novgorod, and are called “The Merry Goat,” so part of Nizhny Novgorod believes that the sculpture has become a kind of symbol of this festival. The other version is rooted in the past. Back in 1781, Nizhny Novgorod was given a coat of arms depicting a deer on a heraldic shield, but for some reason the provincial authorities decided to create their own coat of arms, and the deer was also present. However, whether the artists came across were not very talented, or they were just a little casual about their work, but the depicted deer constantly mocked the inhabitants, because it didn’t look like a proud mischievous goat in the forest with branchy horns. By and large, it is not so important which of the versions is reliable, the main thing is that the charming goat pleases citizens and tourists with its amusing appearance.
State Bank building
Among the most unusual buildings in Nizhny Novgorod, the building of the State Bank invariably leads. There is an opinion that the Nizhny Novgorod merchants made a gift to the emperor, having built the building, but this is not so – it was built at the expense of the treasury for the 300th anniversary of the rule of the Romanovs in 1911–1913. Then the government was convinced that a world war was inevitable, and decided to transport all values ​​inland, away from the border areas. Indeed, during the revolution, more than half of the country’s gold reserves were located in the walls of the Nizhniy Novgorod bank, and the story of Kolchak’s disappeared gold, whose secret has not been solved so far, originates here.
“Spoon of taste”
Another unusual monument, which will please both gourmets and non-standard sights lovers, is located on the territory of the philological faculty of the Nizhny Novgorod State University – this is the sculpture “Spoon of Taste”, created at the initiative of the local oil and fat factory. The monument is a pedestal surrounded by nine cylinders with various kitchen appliances – forks, knives, skimmers and ladles, the whole composition is crowned with a huge spoon with bright green olive. Interestingly, not only architects and blacksmiths are considered to be the creators of the monument, but also ordinary citizens – visitors of the Nizhny Novgorod fair – they put spoons brought with them into special stands, and in return received certificates confirming their participation in the construction of the sculpture. Over time, these spoons were replaced with other cutlery, which now adorn the monument. The whole composition is designed to personify the diversity of human tastes and culinary preferences.