Kazan State University, Russia

Kazan State University, Russia

Next to the Peter and Paul Cathedral stands a six-tiered bell tower, also richly decorated with paintings. At the end of the Kremlin street is the University campus. Kazan State University was founded in 1804, its students at different times were L.N. Tolstoy and V.I. Lenin. According to clothingexpress, the complex of university buildings was formed in the period from the beginning of the 18th to the 20th centuries. The main building of the University was built in the style of classicism and faces the Kremlin street. Several museums have been opened at Kazan State University – the museum of the history of Kazan State University, the museum of the Kazan chemical school, the Zoological Museum named after E.A. Eversman, Botanical Museum, E.K. Zavoisky, Geological Museum named after A.A. Stukenberg, the Archaeological Museum and the Ethnographic Museum. All of them belong to the Kazan State University and are located in separate buildings. The Ethnographic Museum of Kazan University is the oldest museum in the city,

Along the western part of the Kremlin wall and further, parallel to the Kremlin street, the most popular pedestrian street of the city stretches – Bauman Street. This is a kind of “Kazan Arbat”. There are shops, souvenir shops, bars and restaurants. At the beginning of Bauman Street there is a park, and then for one kilometer there are buildings of the 18th-19th centuries. Immediately behind the park opposite the Kremlin is the functioning male Kazan Monastery of St. John the Baptist.. The monastery was founded in the 16th century, most of the buildings of the 17th century have survived to this day, which were erected on the site of older ones after a fire in 1649. Unfortunately, the main monastery church – St. John the Baptist Cathedral – was demolished in the first half of the 20th century after the closure of the monastery, but the five-domed Vvedenskaya Church was preserved here. A little further from the monastery is a temple complex, which includes the Intercession Church of 1703 with a bell tower, famous for its wall paintings, and the Church of St. Nicholas of Nyssa of 1885. Walking further along Bauman Street, you can see the House of the Press, the building of the National Bank, a copy of the bronze carriage of Catherine II, the dial indicating geographical coordinates, symbolizing the historical center of the city, and the oldest theater in Kazan – the Kachalov Bolshoi Academic Russian Drama Theater. In addition, an interesting architectural monument is the Cathedral of the Epiphany, which stands at the end of the street near the University campus. The cathedral was built in the years 1731-1756 in the Baroque style. Next to it, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a 62-meter bell tower was erected. At the bell tower there is a monument to F.I. Chaliapin, who was baptized in the Cathedral of the Epiphany. Bauman Street ends at Tukay Square. Not far from it is the museum-apartment of Sharif Kamal.. Sharif Kamala was a famous Tatar writer. The museum is housed in the apartment where he has lived since 1950. The Bulak Canal flows a little to the west along Baumanskaya Street. It originates from the Kazanka River and ends at Lake Kaban. The Burlak canal is one of the main water arteries of the city. Streets are laid along it on both sides, on which there are office buildings, shops and restaurants. In the western part of the city, near Lake Kaban, behind Tatarstan Street, there is the Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda. In these places since the annexation of Kazan the Russian kingdom was inhabited by Tatars who were not allowed to live within the city. The Old Tatar Sloboda is a colorful area built up with old houses and mosques of the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the most beautiful mosques in the city is the Azimov Mosque. It was erected in 1887-1990 and named after the merchant M.M. Asimov, at whose expense it was built. This is a one-story jami mosque (Friday mosque) with a 51 m high minaret. Marjani mosque stands on the shore of Lake Kaban. The mosque was named after Imam Shigabutdin Marjani. It was built between 1766-1770. This is a two-storied jami mosque with a three-tiered minaret on the roof. Apanaevskaya mosque was built in 1768-1771. The mosque got its name after the merchants Apanaevs, who lived in it and kept it. In the Old Tatar settlement, the Nurulla mosque of the 19th century, built on the images of the Golden Horde mosques, the Sultan mosque of 1867, the Burnaevskaya mosqueof 1872 and the Zakabannaya mosque of 1924, the only one located on the eastern shore of Lake Kaban and the only one built in Soviet times, are also interesting. The Literary Museum of Gabdulla Tukay is located in the Old Tatar settlement in the House of Shamil of the 19th century.. Tukay was a famous Tatar poet who laid the foundations of Tatar literature and the modern Tatar language. The museum exhibits personal belongings of Gabdulla Tukay, his photographs, works, newspapers and magazines for which he wrote, the poet’s death mask, as well as household items of the inhabitants of the Old Tatar settlement of the 19th-20th centuries.

No less interesting is the eastern part of the city, where most of the city’s museums are concentrated. Here, not far from the Kremlin, there is a museum of L.N. Tolstoy, which is dedicated to the years of Tolstoy’s stay in Kazan. The world famous Russian writer lived in the city in 1841-1847 – he studied at the Kazan State University and worked. To the south in a palace-type building of the early 20th century is located State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan. Its expositions include collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, theatrical and decorative and applied arts of Western European schools of the 16th-19th centuries, Russian art of the 16th-20th centuries, Soviet and Tatar fine and applied arts, as well as icons from the Trinity Church and the Assumption Cathedral of Sviyazhsk and the work of such famous artists as N.I. Feshin and I.I. Shishkin. Not far from here is the Salikh Saidashev Museum, dedicated to the Tatar composer and author of numerous musical dramas. The museum is located in the house where the composer lived. On the same street is the Literary and Memorial Museum of A.M. Gorky. It occupies the premises of a mid-19th century brick building, where young Alexei Peshkov worked in a bakery in 1886-1887. Nearby are interesting museum of E.A. Boratynsky and museum-apartment of Musa Jalil.

Kazan State University, Russia

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