Two rivers meet beneath the walls of Nizhny Novgorod: the Oka, coming from the south, flows into the Volga at the foot of a spur crowned with red towers. River cruise boats dock at the river station, on the lower embankment, and you need only look up to understand the whole port call: up above, the kremlin; in between, a monumental staircase; everywhere, water.

Climbing to the kremlin

From the quay, the Chkalov Staircase climbs the cliff in two great stone loops: 560 steps, the longest in Russia. You can climb it in stages, turning around often, because the Volga widens at every landing; the less athletic can go around via the road ramp or a short taxi ride. At the top, the statue of pilot Valery Chkalov, a native son and hero of the first long-distance flights, stands before the entrance to the fortress. Built in the early 16th century, it lines up thirteen towers along ramparts that follow the terrain like a seam; it was from here that the people's militia of Minin and Pozharsky, liberators of Moscow, set out in 1612, and their statue greets passers-by near the main tower. Inside, the paths lead to the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, a 17th-century white stone church where Kuzma Minin rests, and to lookouts plunging down onto the meeting of the two rivers, the Strelka, where the domes of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral gleam.

The street that leads down to life

Beyond the ramparts, Bolshaya Pokrovskaya unrolls its pedestrian ribbon between theatres, cafés and street musicians. It is the residents' favourite promenade, dotted with bronze sculptures rubbed for luck — the cheerful goat near the drama theatre is the most photographed. The street slopes gently down for more than a kilometre, from the ramparts to Gorky Square, and you can walk it one way and return by the parallel lanes, where inner courtyards and wrought-iron balconies tell of the 19th-century merchant city. One building stops everyone in their tracks: the State Bank, completed in 1913, a fairy-tale fortress with pointed roofs and a flamboyant example of the Russian Revival style. Bookshops, tea rooms and ice cream vendors invite you to slow down; pirozhki are eaten here at all hours, and winter changes nothing.

Merchants and writers

Founded in 1221, the city was long the country's great trading post: its 19th-century fair attracted merchants from across the empire and beyond, and the expression "Russia's pocket" has stuck. It is also the birthplace of Maxim Gorky, who gave it his name during the Soviet period, decades when it remained closed to foreigners because of its military factories. The museums devoted to the writer, the wooden houses with carved windows on the side streets and the merchants' mansions on the high bank, such as the Rukavishnikov Estate, tell of this dual identity, commercial and literary, now embraced with obvious pleasure.

Crossing the sky

If time remains, one local experience is a must: the cable car that spans the Volga to the small town of Bor, nearly four kilometres of cable above the water, islands and floodplain meadows. Residents use it like a bus; visitors gain the finest possible panorama of the cliff and its towers, especially in late afternoon, when the sun skims the domes. Back down at the river station, you walk one last time along the restored façades of the lower embankment, where terraces and pocket-sized museums occupy the former warehouses, before departure. The ship pulls away, the rocky spur slowly slips astern, and you understand why the merchants of old swore that no city on the Volga cut a prouder figure.