Nizhny Novgorod cable cars

Of all the cable car rides in the world, Kharkiv's cable cars were just named one of the world's ten best cable car rides! I knew you could do it, Kharkiv!! :D

And so, today, let's look at a cable car ride that didn't make the cut...

... the 13-minute ride between the city of Nizhny Novgorod and the suburb of Bor, Russia.

This was another afternoon excursion in our summer language program. I loooooove cable cars solely based on a dozen rides in Kharkiv and one ride on a line in Odessa. The cable car in Nizhny Novgorod looked like a much bigger deal from the get-go. Just take a look at the platforms-



Here's Kharkiv:

Here's Nizhny Novgorod:

Total opposites, right??!

The cable cars I'd been on in Ukraine were more for fun than for practical reasons. Kharkiv's ride takes you between two parks. Odessa's cars take you from the street down to Otrada Beach. In Nizhny Novgorod, though, commuters ride from the suburbs to the city or vice versa. The city is divided up by the Volga and Oka rivers (remember the most undramatic boat ride ever?), meaning everyone is always commuting across rivers. One of the bridges was closed for repairs this summer, which left people complaining and traveling a longer route. I can see why a cable car line is useful here.

It's also a fairly recent addition, built in 2012. (According to this website, Kharkiv's cars first showed up in 1971.) Bor and Nizhny Novgorod are connected via bridge, cable car, and ferry.

So what was it like to ride across the Volga on a newer cable car meant for mass transit? Take a look!

Once across the Volga, we traveled over what our Russian volunteers called a болота, swampy area.

Beyond the swampy area was the town of Бор, pronounced "bore".

Is Bor actually a bore? I can't say. Here is what we experienced of it-

We literally walked fifty steps off the cable cars, got ice cream, and rode back across the Volga.

Headed back to Nizhny!

As of August 2016, over 8 million passengers have traveled on the Nizhny Novgorod - Bor cable car line. Which cable car would you prefer to travel on? Nizhny Novgorod? Kharkiv? Odessa? Or maybe another from the Top 10 list at the beginning of this post?