Sartakovsky Railway Bridge over the Oká River near Nizhniy Novgorod (Russia)

A wind was howling and knew not about whom,
inspiring trembling in our heart.
a peasant woman walked with milk,
walked along the railroad track.
But at seven sharp, in due form,
tearing in full career from the Oka,
having flashed behind the signal-posts,
an express train takes off’.

In a poem by Mayakovski

Kanavinsky Bridge over the Oká River in Nizhny Novgorod (Russia)

  Was ever such a crowd?
Here Turks and Jews and Gypsies,
  There Persians haughty-browed;
With silken-robed Celestials,
  And Frenchmen from the Seine,
And Khivans and Bokhariotes,—
  Heirs of the Oxus plain.
Here stalk Siberian hunters;
  There tents a Kirghiz clan
By mournful-eyed Armenians
  From wave-girt Astrakhan;
And Russ and Pole and Tartar,
  And mounted Cossack proud,
Now, by the Tower of Babel,
  Was ever such a crowd?

The Fair of Nijni-Novgorod

Edna Dean Proctor (1829–1923)

Garinskiy Bridge over the Oka River in Kaluga (Russia)

On the banks of the Oka River many farmers were happy; the land was not fertile, but carefully carved producing enough to live quietly and to keep something in reserve. Ivan, one of the peasants ...

Beginning of the tale

On the banks of the Oka

Leon Tolstoi