Kazan

June 28, Friday. We arrived in Kazan this morning and set out on our tour. What a nice city!  It is clean, with beautiful buildings everywhere, both old and new. It is obviously more European, sophisticated, modern, and vital than anything we have seen so far on this trip. In addition, it has far fewer of the decaying utilitarian buildings of the Soviet era. They are a blight on cities throughout Russia, from Vladivostok to Yekaterinburg to Moscow, but we saw only one in Kazan. I’m sure there must be more, but perhaps fewer than elsewhere? Kazan is also clearly a prosperous city, with a fairly new subway, many new buildings ranging from palatial apartments to fancy hotels, sleek office buildings and many new sports venues, most of which will be hosting the University Olympic Games next week as well as several other international events in the next few years. Right now, the city is putting finishing touches on street and sidewalk projects so that everything will look spiffy for the games the first week in July. 

Another impressive railroad station

This plaza in front of the station includes  a new underground parking garage.
The entire complex opened just a week or two ago.

Workers were restoring this building not far from the station.
Several of the workers we saw were women, which I thought was very cool!

In the old days, Tatars were not allowed in parts of the city, despite their large numbers among the population.
I think it was Catherine the Great who ended that.  This canal was once a dividing line.
Today it is simply an attractive feature of the landscape in a city where races and religions mingle peacefully.

It is hard to tell whether buildings here are old or new.

I think this is a new and very expensive apartment building near the Kremlin

This old looking building is actually the new Ministry of Agriculture.
It is sometimes referred to as the Palace of Farmers.

A view of the city from the Kremlin

I have forgotten what this bowl shaped structure is, but I think it has something to do with the sports complexes.

This one that looks like a space ship is a new sports arena along the same riverbank

We started our tour at Kazan's Kremlin, the original fortified hill of this 1200 year old city. The old walls and the occasional watchtower still exist, but most of the buildings here are far newer and reflect a vibrant and prosperous city on the rise. 

This guy represents the common man, breaking free of his chains.  He is just outside the Kremlin fortress.

The fortress

Inside the Kremlin complex

It probably didn't look this pretty back in the day...

  You sometimes see women who appear to be Muslim here in Kazan.  We haven't see this anywhere else in Siberia or Russia.  Clearly they are not into wearing black abayahs. Only their headscarves and sometimes long dresses set them apart.

A new mosque inside the Kremlin opened just a few years ago. It is very beautiful, inside and out. Almost a third of the populace here are Tatars, who are Muslim, although we were told that many of them are not especially religious. 

Our Tatar guide outside the mosque

Inside the mosque

The Quran

We ascended to the upper level, from which we could photograph the dome.

...and then look down into the prayer level of the mosque.  I think the men use the
carpeted level and the women are probably in the balconies surrounding it.

Our guide reminded us that no creatures (humans or animals) are ever represented in Islamic art.

Flowers and calligraphy are common components.

Nearby is a large and also fairly new orthodox cathedral where we saw many of the faithful lighting candles and crossing themselves in the Russian manner. Our guide told us that in this province, Tatarstan, all religions are welcomed. We were able to photograph the interior of the mosque, but as usual, we could not use cameras in the cathedral. That's understandable but unfortunate because there are many beautiful visual memories that will not stay with us long. 

It is interesting that the same exterior colors are used in both the mosque and the church.

The Kremlin is a popular place for wedding photography.

The park near the church contains a statue dedicated to the two monks who invented the Cyrillic alphabet. 

There is a long legend associated with this tower--that does lean a bit.  Short version--wealthy older man loves beautiful young woman; she insists he build her a tower before she will wed him.  After the wedding, she throws herself off the tower.  Maybe.

The Tatarstan flag...

...atop the Presidential Palace...

...guarded by a beautiful gate.

As we drove around the city, we passed many very attractive university buildings because Kazan is noted for its schools of higher learning. In fact, about twenty percent of the population consists of college students. Along with the colleges and sports venues, the well educated populace also supports many theaters and concert halls. All of this adds to the vigor of the city. 

Ya gotta love the hats the police wear in Russia.  

 We enjoyed a lunch of typical Tatar foods, or at least everyone else did. It consisted of a salad that even had avocado in it, plus what looked like chicken broth, several meat-filled pastries, an apple pastry, and some of the local sweet called chuk-chuk, which is some sort of pastry that looks like small macaroni and is covered with honey. We had been welcomed to the Kremlin with a taste of it. Okay but not fabulous, we thought.

Dressed in traditional Tatar garb, this lovely young woman welcomed us with the traditional sweet treat of Tatarstan.

Our vegan lunch included the salad, rice with excellently cooked vegetables, and another lovely plate of fruit for dessert. Our whole lunch was so colorful, fresh, and delicious that I couldn't help telling our table mates how sorry I was that they didn't get it too. Several people looked like they agreed.

After lunch we lingered a bit to check email and then walked up and down the pedestrianized street where the restaurant was located. It was very hot here today, with temperatures in the low nineties, so we all hugged the buildings on the shady side of the street. We were glad when our air conditioned bus came to take us to the concert hall where a Russian baritone entertained us with several songs from the repertoire of a famous native son who had a long operatic career in Europe. The hall was quite warm, but the music was very nice. 

The pedestrianized street

The bell tower

The concert hall

That canal again, in the other direction

After the concert, we came back to the train to cool off. I had expected to be hotter in Siberia because we had been told the continental climate would result in hot summer days, but it has gotten steadily warmer as we travel west. Yesterday in Ekaterinburg the weather was actually perfect, warm but not hot, dry, and sunny with great puffy white clouds in the sky. I wonder what kind of weather we will have in Moscow tomorrow and Sunday. 

We had never even heard of Kazan until today, but in terms of livability, it is clearly our favorite city on this tour.  And we were not alone in feeling that.  Others in our group said the same, and one couple, who are from France and Italy but live in Chile, plan to rent an apartment here for a month next year in order to enjoy even more of this delightful Russian city.