Although it is Russia's third largest city, you may not have heard of Nizhny Novgorod. You probably know it as Gorky, the place where the late Andrei Sakharov, physicist, human rights campaigner and Nobel laureate, was exiled until his release in 1986.
Gorky was, until 1990, a closed city, off-bounds to foreigners because of the strategic importance of its research institutes and arms factories. After it was opened up, the city reverted to its original name.
This was about as much as I knew about the place before I visited it. I imagined it as grim, grey and industrialised. It turned out to be none of these.
I arrived in St Petersburg and contemplated how to get to Nizhny Novgorod. I could either take a "Baby Flot" (an internal Aeroflot flight) and be launched into virtually unregulated skies, or risk being mugged on an 18-hour train journey.
I consulted the guidebook. The International Airline Passenger Association ranks Russia's regional safety record as the worst in the world - worse even than that of China, Central Africa, Colombia and all developing Asian nations. My decision was made - but not without severe reservations.
I had heard stories about Russian train conductors who, in cahoots with robbers, broke into carriages to fleece tourists. I decided to take no chances.
Acting on the advice of an American colleague living in Russia, I booked both beds in a first-class carriage, no price being too high for safety of body and peace of mind.
Mounting apprehension
Then an American woman told me that she and a Russian friend travelling overnight in a second-class carriage once inquired of a conductor whether it was likely that they would be mugged. "Oh, no," he had replied cheerfully. "The thieves only go to first class."
In an attempt to reassure myself that my mounting apprehension was well out of proportion to the actual risk involved, I casually quizzed another American man who had travelled extensively by train in Russia. "Oh, it's really not bad at all," he replied. Just what I wanted to hear. Then, as a parting remark, he added: "Oh, and you have a can of Mace, don't you?" I blinked hard, straining to conceal my horror. But I gave away my emotions when the man's female Russian friend stated nonchalantly in perfect English that she would never travel on a Russian train unaccompanied due to the high risk of being raped. Raped? That was a fate which I hadn't even contemplated. My train was leaving in a few hours.
Locked the door
As I took my seat in the carriage, charmingly kitsch with its net curtains and spray of red plastic roses, I was feeling very edgy. I hid my rucksack under one of the beds and locked the door.
When the matriarchal conductor came along to check my tickets, her raised eyebrows showed her surprise at my extravagance in booking a whole carriage to myself. It cost well over $100. Sensing my unease, she gestured that I should not answer the door to any knock but hers, which she demonstrated for me.
Throughout the journey to Nizhny Novgorod, I kept my money-belt strapped around my waist, the door bolted and my trips to the toilet rationed. And as the train rattled along through the vast tracts of treecovered land dotted with the odd clearing of cottages, I slept soundly.
I made it to safely to Nizhny Novgorod and was met at the railway station by my cheerful hostess who was startled that all Irish women didn't have red hair and freckles.
I was staying at the Hotel Rossia. It is built to Stalinist proportions, with wide halls and ridiculously high ceilings which force you to look up and contemplate how small you are in the vast scheme of things. The only commendable feature of my room was its spectacular view over the River Volga and the glorious, dusty orange sunsets. It also had a fridge and was not, like other rooms in the hotel where my colleagues stayed, overrun by creepy crawlies.
It reminded me of the sort of cheap bed-sits I had turned my nose up at when flat-hunting as a student - right down to the grubby net curtains, worn carpet, noisy plumbing and flowerpatterned bed spread in manmade fabric.
Tourists were thin on the ground in the city, but there were plenty of proselytisers of all kinds: on several occasions I was approached by young women offering me free cigarettes and beauty products. But the charms of Nizhny Novgorod extended well beyond such gifts. Unlike many other Russian cities, most of its turn-ofthe-century wooden houses with intricately carved wooden window frames and barge boards are still standing. I visited the Sakharov Museum, which is housed in the ground-floor, four-room apartment in a nondescript suburban apartment block where the dissident spent six years in exile. In the living room there was a white telephone which we were told was specially installed so that Sakharov could receive the phone call from Mikhail Gorbachev telling him that he was to be released.
Western prices
Nizhny Novgorod has a progressive governor and a high ratio of privatisation. Shops in its pedestrianised main street sold Reeboks, Levis and French perfumes at Western prices.
About 50 kilometres outside the city is the site where Nikita Mikhalkov's Oscar-winning film, Burnt By The Sun, was shot. The dacha used in the film was, in fact, owned the city's governor.
One hundred years ago, the city was known for its annual all-Russian industrial and art exhibition, Nizhegorodskaya Yarmarka. A French poet who visited it in the late 18th century is reported to have said of it: "I knew St Petersburg and Moscow, but I had yet to see Nizhny Novgorod. And is it possible to live without seeing Nizhny Novgorod?" I can verify that it is at least possible to take a train, and live, to see Niznhy Novgorod.