Kazan. Part 6.Travelling Way Back in Time (The Volga Bolghar). Concluding Thoughts

I am not a fan of group tours, but it is good to have somebody else take care of navigation and time management for a change. Places like the one I have visited today might need a professional tour guide to help you decipher, decode and generally make sense of what is in front of you. I could have gone to one of the neighboring republics (Mari …

Kazan. Part 5. Great People of Kazan: Literature, Linguistics, Politics, Science

As per usual, my last full day in a new city is about exploring some parts which seem to have been left ignored. Well, it is no wonder these are often those closest to where you stay. Kremlin Street, which is home to the government institutions, is one of them. Actually through a glass window in my apartment landing going up and down …

Kazan. Part 4. The Volga River, Music, Metrolingualism

A graffiti showing a man wearing a tubeteika (a national cap) in Tatarstan Avenue Tatarstan Avenue led me to finally see the Volga River which has a special place in the hearts of Russians. It flows entirely through Russia. I knew I had to see this national river here for the first time in my life. While a …

Kazan. Part 3. On the City’s Ethnic Identity, Tatar Language, The Other Side of Kazan

I am in my room in Kremlin Street listening to some Tatar music eating another new type of the locally made chakchak. Why is it we want to listen to national music to get us closer to the place we are visiting (that now I seem a bit more knowledgeable about)? There is this amazing ethnic song by a young Tatar …

Kazan. Part 2. On Religion, Ethnicity, Food

I spent the next day walking around exploring the interior of the Kul Sharif mosque and spending some extra time in there to escape the scorching heat. I also had my first encounter with the Kazan’s own version of the Moscow Arbat (a central pedestrianized street) followed by crossing through the Kazanka River to see the qazan-shaped family center with gorgeous views of the Kremlin. To …

Kazan. Part 1

INTRODUCTION Why Kazan? Kazan (Казань in Russian, Казан in Tatar), Russia’s fifth largest city, had been at the top of my domestic travel list way before exploring our own country became a reality that we had to learn to embrace. What was it that drew me to the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan located in central Russia? I had expected it to be definitely somewhat different from anywhere in the country I’d been, …