Waiting in Kazan - 30 June Day 19

It's a waiting day for us in Kazan. Waiting for the rally to arrive this afternoon and hoping that friends are here early enough to share dinner; watching, slightly anxiously, the progress of Emerald on Vlad's low loader. 

It's a waiting day for us in Kazan. Waiting for the rally to arrive this afternoon and hoping that friends are here early enough to share dinner; watching, slightly anxiously, the progress of Emerald on Vlad's low loader.

We once hoped that he might reach us today but that's not realistic. Tomorrow is fine as long as it's in time for us to prepare the car before the evening as Saturday's departure will be early. He needs to get to Ufa tonight and as I write he's on the outskirts. Anything more is a bonus. 

In the meantime Kazan has been entertaining us well. It's an ancient town on the Volga and thought to have been a key point on north-south trading routes at least since medieval times. At the heart of the historic city is an enormous Kremlin (Russian term for a walled fortress including the one in Moscow but not uniquely so: think Tower of London or Prague Castle with an outer wall enclosing an assortment of buildings.   The Kazan Kremlin is huge with scores of elegant baroque, classical and modern buildings. At the heart is the Soyembika Tower, a dramatic tower associated by many with the pre-Russian Tatar Khanate and dating back to the mid sixteenth century.

The Kremlin also includes a Russian Orthodox cathedral, the Palace of the President of Tatarstan and notable fortifications. Dominating one part of the site is a modern mosque reflecting the traditional  Tatar religious allegiance.

The City has been set up to provide a tourist experience with pedestrianised streets lined by bars and cafes. In the West it would be teeming and even with tourism effectively limited to Russia it claims 1.5 million visitors a year.