Nizhniy Novgorod

City and river port in the central Russian Federation, 375 km/233 mi east of Moscow; population (2002) 1,311,300. The city is situated at the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers, and is a major transportation centre; six railway lines converge here, and large quantities of freight and passengers are carried by river traffic. Motor vehicles, locomotives, aircraft, and ships are manufactured here, making its transport industry the largest in the Russian Federation. There are also diesel motor and machine-tool works, oil processing, glass, woodworking, and various light and food industries. An International Trade Fair is held annually in Nizhniy Novgorod.

Nizhniy Novgorod was founded on the site of a Bulgarian settlement in 1221 by the Grand Prince of Vladimir, as a frontier fortress against the Volga Bulgarians, the Mordva, and the Tatars. In 1932, the city was renamed Gorky, after the writer Maxim Gorky, who was born here in 1868; it reverted to its original name after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR sent political dissidents into internal exile here, and closed the city to foreign visitors; from 1980–86, it was home to the exiled nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov.