What a gorgeous day! The sun was shining and the temperature was pleasant. I was going to meet my friend Anna at 1 to walk through the old Tatar area with the wooden houses so I decided that this would be a great morning to take a bus tour of the city, to give myself a complete picture of what there was to see. Got to the bus at 10:15 and they told me the tour wouldn't leave until 11:30. The gave me headphones and told me to put them on a seat to reserve it and be back at 11:15. So I had time to hit my favorite coffee house for a cup of cappuccino and read a little in my book about Kazan. I walked back to the bus and turned my speaker to the English Channel, and off we drove. I got a good idea of which streets connect and where things are because, as I mentioned before, the tourist map isn't worth the paper it's printed on. So many famous Russian and Tatar poets and writers studied and lived in Kazan. Kazan also has a couple of great universities. And the pedestrian zone is absolutely alive with people! Rochester, take note! If you want to revitalize downtown, get rid of the cars in one or two sections of town, and watch the people take over and the businesses grow.
I met Anna in front of the shopping center with the great bookstore and we started walking towards the Tatar old town. She's lived here for two years now, so she's a great tour guide. We saw the wooden houses which, in this area are very touristy. The other ones I've seen are basically brown with lovely latticed windows. But these were certainly well-restored and colorful. We also went into the oldest stone mosque in the city. It is from the 1760s. Next we went into a few souvenir shops where I found a neat hat.
We continued on to the pedestrian zone and climbed the tour of the Nikolai Church. What a view! But holy crow, the only thing there to keep you from falling out of the openings is some retaining rods and chicken wire! Definitely not for the faint-hearted. The view was certainly worth it. I forgot how many steps there were, but they were steep and narrow.
After we made it back down, we wandered down to the House of Tea. I don't think the decor has changed in this place since the 80s. It serves really good Tatar/Russian cuisine and the place was packed. We ended up asking a couple if we could share a table with them, because we couldn't find a seat. This is totally acceptable behavior here. I had a large glass of tomato juice and an oeshpoeshmok, a meat, potato and onion filled triangular pastry. Anna had cheesecake and tea. The total bill? $2.50. No tip, no extra tax. Amazing.
We left and ran into some other friends and talked for a few minutes before we headed on to the Kremlin. The view over the Kazanka River was just spectacular today. We left the
Kremlin and walked along the promenade on the river and saw some restaurants that will definitely be worth trying. At the end of the promenade, we turned and went up into town and back to the Metro station. I'll bet we walked 5-6 miles today. And it's interesting that, except for in the pedestrian zone, you don't see many people out and about. Apparently, people in Kazan don't get out and explore their city very much.
All in all, a very nice weekend.
Great pics!
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