Top Choice Historic Site in Kazan
Kazan Kremlin
Kazan’s striking kremlin is home to government offices, pleasant parks, museums, the enormous Kul Sharif Mosque and other religious buildings. Among the highlights are the Hermitage Kazan gallery and the Tatarstan M…
Top Choice Museum in Kazan
Chak-chak Museum
Interactive museum dedicated to traditional Tatar food and drink, particularly sweet 'chak-chak', balls of dough that are baked in honey and served on holidays and at family festivities. Call or email in advance to …
Top Choice Museum in Kazan
Soviet Lifestyle Museum
Kazan's most unusual museum, packed with Soviet knick-knacks, is proof that Russia's socialist epoch fostered a lively contemporary cultural scene – especially music – in the 1970s and 1980s.
Top Choice Mosque in Kazan
Kul Sharif Mosque
The Kul Sharif Mosque was completed in 2005 and is named after the imam who died defending the city against the troops of Ivan the Terrible in 1552. The museum inside tells the story of Islam, especially on the Volg…
Historic Site in Kazan
Old Tatar Settlement
This assemblage of historic timbered buildings, dating mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, marks the quarter where ethnic Tatars were forced to live following the siege of Kazan in 1552. Little of the old settl…
Church in Kazan
Annunciation Cathedral
The attractive Annunciation Cathedral, built on on the foundations of a razed eight-minaret mosque, was designed by Postnik Yakovlev, who was also responsible for St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. It was destroyed sev…
Museum in Kazan
National Museum of the Republic of Tatarstan
Opposite the kremlin’s main entrance, the National Museum occupies an ornate 1770 building and has a worthwhile archaeology collection as well as jewellery, weapons and exhibits on the history of the Tatar people an…
Library in Kazan
House of Zinaida Ushkova/Tatarstan National Library
This small but extraordinary library dates from the early years of the 20th century, when several mid-19th-century houses were united and restyled to give each room its own art nouveau theme. Call ahead for English …
Historic Building in Kazan
Epiphany Cathedral Bell Tower
This impressive bell tower, standing some 74m high, is visible all along the pedestrian promenade of ul Baumana. The tower dates from the late 19th century and can be climbed for impressive views out around the cent…
Historic Building in Kazan
Syuyumbike Tower
The 59m-high leaning Syuyumbike Tower dates from the early 18th century and is the subject of one of the most romantic of Kazan’s legends.