Kazan' Off The Beaten Path

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The Kremlin of Kazan / Kasan was granted the title UNESCO-World-heritage some years ago and so they proudly have the UNESCO-emblem on top of many of their towers there.
The tower that you see in these photographs is the one, where most tours are leaving the Kremlin-area and go on with the bustours.

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Unfortunately I saw Nurulla Moscque only from a distance, when our tourbus passed by it at the beginning of our guided tour through Kazan. This mosque is quite close to the cruiseport and dates back to the 19th century.

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This very impressive building in Baumana uliza / Baumann street is nothing else than a bank. The building dates back to the 19th century and has also a great iron fence in front of it.
We had half an hour on our own to walk in this pedestrian-street, that was enough totake some photos but not enough to do some shopping...

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Maison de Paris is an interesting building in Art-Nouveau-style and you will find it , when walking on Baumana uliza / Baumann-street, about 800 meters from the belfry with the red bricks. In front of that building you will also find a monument showing various distances to important towns all over the world (see it in my 1st photograph)

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The sculpture of a man in chains is about the famous local Tartar poet Musa Jalil who died in prison in 1943. You will find this monument between Spassky Tower and Gostiny Dvor, most guided tours through the Kremlin will start at this point !
I was lucky to see there also a small group of car-enthousiats showing their treasures of old soviet vintage cars (my last photograph).

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Gostiny Dvor is the name of such a typical shopping-centre like you will find it in many cities in Russia : They are dating back to end of the 19th century and they consisted of several small shopping-counters inside. For the city it was very easy to calulate the taxes that way .
Gostiny Dvor is not a shopping-centre any more, but a museum and you will find it on the big square opposite of Spaskaya tower and the Tourist-entrance to the Kremlin of Kazan.

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When leaving the port of Kazan / Kasan and cruising in direction of Moscow you will see these interesting ruins on an island and partly even in the lake, obviously the lake was made artificially and some villages had been flooded there and only a few higher spires are still to be seen reaching out of the water.
These ruins will show up about 15 minutes after leaving the port and before the ship will enter the lock.

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The Kremlin of Kazan / Kasan is still totally surrounded by its medieval wall dating back to the 15th century. You will be able to walk around these walls or drive around of it, just as our tourbus did on the tour that was part of my cruise-arrangement. Obviously you can enter the Kremlin only through Spaskaya Tower, but leave it through various different exit-gates.
You have to pay a small entrance-fee when entering the Kremlin, but at least there are absolutely no security-checks like in the Kremlin of Moscow !