Strelka Spit: Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Pakgauzy and Fairgrounds

Projecting like a triangular prow into the confluence where the Oka flows into the Volga, the Strelka (Spit) of Nizhny Novgorod served from 1817 as the busy shipping cape and wharf of the Nizhny Novgorod Fair, where barges unloaded tea, iron, cotton, and grain, and later operated for decades as a fenced-off Soviet river cargo port. Cleared of concrete port warehouses ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup and landscaped with riverside promenades and an amphitheatre for the city's 800th anniversary in 2021, the cape now forms a dramatic public waterfront looking directly across the water to the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin and Fedorovsky Embankment.

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (New Fair Cathedral)

Dominating the cape at 3a Strelka Street is the yellow-brick Cathedral of St. Alexander Nevsky, historically known as the New Fair Cathedral. Built between 1868 and 1881 with donations from fair merchants to a design by architect Lev Dahl and completed by Robert Kilevein, the five-tented Neo-Russian church rises 87 metres high, making it one of the tallest Orthodox churches in Russia, alongside the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow and Saint Isaac's Cathedral in Saint Petersburg. The cathedral was consecrated on 20 July 1881 in the presence of Emperor Alexander III.

The Iron Pakgauzy Cultural Pavilions

At the very tip of the cape (21 Strelka Street) stand the Pakgauzy: two open-work riveted iron frames originally manufactured at the Saint Petersburg Metal Plant for the Central Building of the 1882 All-Russia Industrial and Art Exhibition in Moscow, relocated to Nizhny Novgorod for the 1896 All-Russia Exhibition, and subsequently moved to the Strelka port as freight warehouses. Rediscovered inside brick warehouse walls in 2015, conserved, and fitted with mirror-clad concert and gallery enclosures that opened in 2022, their concert hall features a glass stage wall framing the Kremlin hill across the river.

Nizhny Novgorod Stadium

Behind the cathedral rises the 44,899-seat Nizhny Novgorod Stadium, built between 2015 and 2018 for the FIFA World Cup with a colonnade of white triangular pillars inspired by Volga water and wind, directly beside Strelka Metro Station (opened on 12 June 2018).

The 1890 Main Fair Building and 1822 Old Fair Cathedral

Just south of the Strelka along Sovnarkomovskaya Street lies the historic Nizhny Novgorod Fair, Russia's largest nineteenth-century trade fair, transferred here from Makaryevo in 1817 and laid out by engineer Agustín de Betancourt. Its two surviving architectural centrepieces are the 1818 to 1822 Empire-style Transfiguration Old Fair Cathedral (designed by Auguste de Montferrand) and the 1890 Neo-Russian Main Fair Building.

How to Reach Strelka Spit

Ride Line 2 of the Metro to Strelka Station or walk across Kanavinsky Bridge from Rozhdestvenskaya Street.