Nizhnyi Novgorod was founded in 1221 by the Prince of Vladimir Yuryi Vsevolodovich. It was called Gorky in 1932-1990. The population of the city is 1,376,000 people. It is a large river port, trade and cultural centre. One of the most ancient chronicles of Russia was written here, in Pechersky monastery, written in 1328-30. Later it was known as Lavrentyevskaya chronicle.

At first the city was surrounded with wooden walls of oaks, then the building of a stone Kremlin was begun in 1374. N.Novgorod was annexed to Moscow by Vasily I in 1392 and soon it became a strong point of struggle against Kazan Khanate. The Kremlin built by Peter Fryazin in 1508-1511 helped the citizens of Novgorod to resist the raids of the Tatars in 1520-1536.

In 1611-12 N.Novgorod was the centre of the forming of home guards of Kozma Minin and Dmitry Pozharsky against Polish invaders.

Since the 19th century the city has received industrial significance. Flour-grinding and shipbuilding industries grew. Makaryevskaya Fair moved to N.Novgorod in 1817. Shipbuilding plant "Sormovo" was built in 1849. All these factors played an important role in the growth of the city. The steamship-line has been developed since the middle of the 19th century: there were 15 steamships on the Volga in 1854, about 350 - in 1870, more than 1000 - in 1890. At the end of the 19th century N.Novgorod becomes the largest centre of trade and finance and the largest in the world for the wholesale trade of grains.

Now N.Novgorod is one of the largest car producing centres of Russia with its GAZ (Gorkovsky motorcar factory) and veteran-plant "Krasnoe Sormovo" - the main shipbuilding plant of the fleet of the Volga.

There are also numerous monuments of history and architecture. Some of them are: the Kremlin with its Fortress towers (1500, 1508-1511) and Arkhangelsky Cathedral, built by Lavrenty and Antip Vozoulin (1624 - 1631); the monasteries: of the Annunciation with the cathedral (1649) and with the Assumption church (1678) and Pechersky with its Ascension cathedral by Antip Vozoulin (1632) the Annunciation church on the Ilyinskaya mountain (1672 - 1715); the churches: Smolenskaya (1684 - 1697) Rozhdestvenskaya (1719), built in the style of Stroganov and Pushnikov's house (the 17th century).