Day 15 - Friday, Sept 27 - In Kazan

After setting the clock back 2 hours, I’m waking up pretty early and waiting until it is reasonable to get up. It was light at 5am as we are at the very eastern part of the timezone. We are now in the Moscow timezone, 7 hours ahead of New York.

It is a pretty dismal morning, overcast and sprinkling with the temperature just above freezing.

We see some large fields but can’t tell what was being grown. There are some dairy cows grazing on both sides of the track – hopefully they know to get out of the way when the train comes through.

All the people with intestinal problems are up this morning. My mother still has a nasty cold and is going to stay on the train today.

We are stopping in Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan, the Tatar Republic of the Russian Federation, with a population of 1.2 million. It was founded over a 1000 years ago. It has a complicated history, being conquered by the Mongols in the 13^th century and then by the Russian Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) in the 16^th century.

Tatarstan slight majority of Muslims with the rest mainly Orthodox. Our tour guide said that all the religions respect each other with no conflict. There are many mosques and churches in the city, including Jewish, Catholic and Lutheran.

After we got off the train, we had a bus tour of the main part of the city which was developed in the 19^th century and has many buildings with the beautiful architecture of that period. Fortunately, this area was preserved with new construction in the outskirts. A river runs through the city and there are many beautiful fountains and gardens. There is also a fairly large lake right in the middle of the city.

We went past a statue of Lenin when he was 17 years old at the University of Kazan. He looks strikingly like Leonardo DiCaprio! Lenin was expelled from the university after only 3 months for participating in a demonstration about tuition increases and other grievances. This was long before his leading the Russian revolution.

Lenin at age 17

Our first stop was the Kazan Kremlin, “Kremlin” just means fort or fortress – there are actually 18 named kremlins in Russia. There was originally a wooden fortress constructed by the Tatars which was replaced by a stone/brick fortress after being conquered by Ivan the Terrible. The kremlin is a UNESCO world heritage site. Inside the Kremlin is the ornate Peter and Paul Orthodox Cathedral dating back to the 1500s.

Orthodox cathedral with mosque in background

The original Tatar mosque was torn down by Ivan the Terrible in 1552, reconstructed later and torn town by the Soviets. The Qol Sharif Mosque was constructed on the old mosque site in 2005 and is the largest mosque in Russia. In the places we’ve visited, there has been a huge construction boom of mosques and churches after 1996, funded independently of the government but with government approval. It is interesting to see how religion is growing after being suppressed for so many years.

Qol Sharif mosque inside Kazan Kremlin

Prayer area inside mosque

We had lunch at a restaurant serving Tatar cuisine, chicken broth, beef and chicken dumplings, roast beef with gravy, delicious roasted vegetables and Tatar apple pie with ice cream for dessert.

We then went to the music conservatory for a concert by young gifted musicians from a neighboring school for the gifted. It featured performers from 7 to 16 years old and the quality of the performance was absolutely exceptional. Many of us were in tears after hearing them. There were violinists, a clarinet player and several pianists. A 13 year-old girl performed a piece by Chopin that was hard to believe. She had to come back on the stage as people wouldn’t stop clapping,

Young musicians at conservatory

We went to the “Tatar Village” a mosque and typical brightly painted Tatar-style houses. A man in Tatar attire was playing traditional instruments.

Traditional Tatar wooden houses

Tatar musician

We went to a wide pedestrian street lined with souvenir shops and restaurants in 19^th century buildings. Across the square, there is a huge modern 3-story mall with many high-end clothing, cosmetic, shoe and other stores. It was packed with well-dressed shoppers – the economy is doing very well in Kazan, largely due to the oil, gas and industrial base.

19th century buildings in shopping district

Our “farewell” dinner was held on the train where we received “passports” with stamps of the places we had visited.