Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin

Put your palm flat against the wall. The brick is a deep, weathered red, rough under the fingers and cool even on a warm afternoon. Some bricks are darker, some almost orange, and the mortar between them has worn into soft grooves. Above you, the wall rises in a steady line of swallowtail battlements. Behind you, the city hums. Ahead, the ground climbs and falls away toward two great rivers.

This is the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin. In Russian, the word kremlin simply means a fortress at the heart of a town. Many old Russian cities had one. This one sits on a high bluff above the meeting point of the Oka and the Volga, two of the largest rivers in this part of the world. That position explains almost everything about why the fortress exists, and why it looks the way it does.

The city itself was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich, a ruler of the Vladimir lands. At that time this was a frontier. The rivers carried trade, but they also carried danger. The first fortifications here were made of timber and earth. Wooden walls burned easily, and over the following centuries the town was attacked, damaged and rebuilt more than once.

The brick fortress you see today belongs to the early sixteenth century. It was raised during the reign of Grand Prince Vasily the Third of Moscow, when Moscow was pulling the Russian lands together under one ruler. Nizhny Novgorod was a key eastern outpost on the Volga. Italian masters were working on fortresses for Moscow in this period, and their influence shows clearly in the shape of the battlements — the same forked swallowtail pattern you can see on the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.

Here is something many visitors miss. The walls do not sit on flat ground. They run for roughly two kilometres, and they follow the hill itself — climbing steep slopes, then dropping sharply down toward the river below. If you walk the full circuit, you feel it in your legs. The builders did not level the land. They used it. The steep drop on the river side made the fortress much harder to attack.

The circuit of walls carries a series of towers — some square, some round. Thirteen towers stood along the line in the old fortress. Each one had a name and a job: a gate, a lookout, a storehouse, a point for covering the next stretch of wall with fire. Notice how the towers stand at intervals, so that defenders in one could protect the wall beside the next. It is a practical design, and a quietly elegant one.

And now the second surprise. This fortress has a reputation that few in Russia share. It was attacked, but it was not taken by siege. In the sixteenth century, armies from the Kazan and Crimean khanates came up against these walls, and the walls held. A fortress built to survive did exactly that. Its long life as a working defence is part of why so much of it still stands.

The kremlin's most famous moment in Russian history is not about defence, though. It is about a call for help. In the early seventeenth century, Russia fell into a long crisis that historians call the Time of Troubles — a period of famine, civil war and foreign occupation. Polish forces held Moscow. In Nizhny Novgorod, a local merchant named Kuzma Minin urged the townspeople to give money and goods to raise a volunteer army.

That army was led in the field by Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. In 1612, the militia that had gathered here marched on Moscow and drove out the occupying forces. Russians still tell this story as one of ordinary people saving their country. A national holiday in early November is linked to these events. When you stand in this fortress, you are standing where that campaign began.

Inside the walls, look for the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael. It is the oldest building still standing inside the kremlin. The church you see dates from the seventeenth century, but a church has stood on this site for far longer. Its tall, pointed tent roof is typical of Russian church building from that period. Kuzma Minin is buried inside — the merchant who started it all now rests at the centre of the fortress he helped make famous.

Not everything here is old. The kremlin is still a seat of government, and you will see administrative buildings from later centuries among the trees and lawns. Near the cathedral there is a memorial with an eternal flame, honouring those who died in the Second World War. Close by stands an outdoor display of wartime military vehicles and equipment. During the Soviet period, this city carried a different name — Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, who was born here. It was also a major centre for war production.

From the edge of the fortress, the view opens wide. Below you, the Volga runs broad and slow. On a clear day you can follow the line of the far bank for a long way. Nearby, the long Chkalov Stairs drop from the upper town down toward the river embankment. The stairs were built after the war. The climb back up is long, so save your energy if you plan to go down.

Take a moment before you leave. Run your hand over the brick one more time, and look at the patches where newer bricks fill the old ones — the marks of five centuries of repair. Listen for the wind coming up off the river. As you walk out through the main gate toward the square, turn around once. Look at the line of red battlements against the sky. That line has watched over these rivers for a very long time.