NIZHNY NOVGOROD : Nizhny Novgorod comes off as a city trapped between the past and the present. At first glance, everything is minty fresh — the blemishless, tarred streets, the shining orange signboards that direct fans to the stadium and the newly-renovated railway station that looks more important than its counterparts in Moscow. But every now and then, the less than fancy past reveals itself to unsuspecting visitors — a white broken down bus amidst a row of new orange ones, dilapidated buildings that were overlooked in the facelift that the city received in the build-up to the World Cup.
A week into the World Cup, Nizhny has unwittingly been thrust into the spotlight. A city that was closed to foreigners for half a century during Soviet rule, Nizhny was venue to a secret weapons programme and was known as the city where Maxim Gorky was born and where dissidents were exiled to die — the most famous of this being Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov in the 80s. Now it’s the stage for some pivotal World Cup matches — Argentina played a crunch game here on Thursday while England play here next week. It’s also where Russian football’s latest superstar was born.
It would be wrong to say that Nizhny is home to Denis Cheryshev, the unlikely hero behind Russia’s storming start in the World Cup. He left the city for Spain when he was just six years old. But people still remember his father — Dmitri Cheryshev.Dmitri Migushin does not think too many people would know where the Cheryshevs lived before they left for Spain in the late 90s. He is delighted that someone born in the city is starring for Russia. But it is the elder of the two Cheryshevs that he has more to talk about.
“Back when he was playing, Dmitri Cheryshev was very popular here,” he says. “People here know Denis as his son. He started out playing for Lokomotiv Nizhny Novgorod (a local team that no longer exists) and went on to play for Russia.”It was when Dmitri, a forward, received an offer to play for La Liga outfit Sporting Gijon that the Cheryshevs left Russia and settled in Spain. After wrapping up his playing career in 2003, Dmitri joined Real Madrid as a coach. A 12-year-old Denis followed him there and would go on to play for Real’s first team.
In many ways, Denis’ and Nizhny’s recent upswing of fortunes are similar. “No one expected Denis to be in the World Cup squad,” says Konstantin Levik, a Russian football journalist. “He had never scored for Russia before. He was not being played in the pre-World Cup friendlies. So it was a big surprise when he started scoring all those goals.”
Nizhny too is the unlikeliest of venues and one of the least logical candidates for a swanky new 45,000-seater stadium. Football is not the biggest sport here — the city’s only active club FC Olimpiyets Nizhny Novgorod was founded as recently as 2015 — around the same time as work on the stadium started — and play in the third-tier of Russian football. Their average home attendance last season was slightly over 1000. Next season, they will have the task of finding 44,000 more people to come to their games.
The local residents though believe that hosting the World Cup has given them a chance to showcase their city. “I think Nizhny is a hidden gem in Russia,” says one of the volunteers, who is from the city. “It is very beautiful but few tourists know about it. The World Cup has led to an upgrade in infrastructure and a lot of people will be coming here and discovering Nizhny. I think this will lead to us becoming a tourist destination.”