Kazan

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Kazan (Russian: Казань; Tatar: Казан, Qazan) is the capital city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, and one of Russia's largest cities. It is a major industrial, commercial and cultural center, and remains the most important center of Tatar culture.

 

Kazan lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in central European Russia.

It was founded in the 13th century by Mongols of the Golden Horde; it became the capital of an independent khanate in the 15th century. In 1552 Ivan IV (the Terrible) captured Kazan and subjugated the khanate. The city was burned in a revolt (1773 - 74), but after its reconstruction it grew in importance as a trading centre, and by the beginning of the 20th century it was one of the chief manufacturing cities of Russia

 

The Kazan State University was founded in 1804 and has had several prominent students, including Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, Leo Tolstoy and Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin.

Kazan State Technical University was established in 1932. Today the University is one of the leading institutions in the development of aircraft and rocket engineering, engine- and instrument-production, computer science and radio engineering.

 

The city has a beautiful citadel (Russian: kreml, or, sometimes, Tatar: kirman), which was declared the World Heritage Site in 2000. Major monuments in the kremlin are the 5-domed 6-columned Annunciation Cathedral (1561-62) and the mysterious leaning Soyembika Tower, named after the last queen of Kazan and regarded as the city's most conspicuous landmark.

 

Also of interest are the towers and walls, erected in the 16th and 17th centuries but later reconstructed; the Qol-arif mosque, which is already rebuilt inside the citadel; remains of the Saviour Monastery (its splendid 16th-century cathedral having been demolished by the Bolsheviks) with the Spasskaya Tower; and the Governor's House (1843-53), designed by Konstantin Thon, now the Palace of the President of Tatarstan.