Cheboksary Bay is an artificial inlet created in the 1980s when the Cheboksarskaya hydroelectric plant on the Volga raised water levels. The bay now forms the most attractive part of the city — a sheltered stretch of water surrounded by the embankment on three sides, with the old town on the bluff above and a view across to the Volga.
The embankment is where the city's social life happens on summer evenings: families walking, young people on steps overlooking the water, ice cream vendors, and the occasional wedding party posing for photographs. The 19th-century Dormition Cathedral and the Trinity Monastery can be seen on the promontory above. The best overview of the bay is from the bridge that crosses it — from here the full sweep of the waterfront, with its Soviet-era fountains and Soviet-era apartment blocks mixed with older churches, makes a compositionally interesting photograph.