Kazan Kremlin: what to see. Historical and architectural complex “Kazan Kremlin” UNESCO site Kazan Kremlin
In our country there are so many interesting and memorable places that life is not enough to see them all. Today we will go to Tatarstan. A landmark that the capital of the republic is proud of is the Kazan Kremlin, the oldest part of the city, a unique complex of historical, archaeological and architectural monuments that reveal centuries-old history the Tatar people, the ancient city and the republic as a whole.
The entire territory of the complex today is a museum-reserve, which has been under the protection of UNESCO since 2000. The Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan) is the main attraction of the republic. The vast territory harmoniously combines Tatar and Russian cultural traditions.
After Kazan was taken by the troops of Ivan the Terrible, most of the Kremlin’s structures were damaged and almost all the mosques were destroyed. The Tsar ordered the construction of a white stone Kremlin here, and for this purpose, architects were sent from Pskov to build the Moscow St. Basil's Cathedral. The fortress was significantly expanded, and wooden defensive structures were replaced with stone ones in the first half of the 17th century.
In the 18th century, the Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan) lost its military function and became cultural and administrative center Volga region. In subsequent centuries, construction was carried out here of the Governor's Palace, a cadet school, a bishop's house, a spiritual consistory, and government buildings. In addition, the Annunciation Cathedral was reconstructed.
After the October Revolution (1917), the bell tower of the Annunciation Cathedral, the temple of the Spassky Monastery, the chapel at the Spasskaya Tower and others were destroyed in the Kazan Kremlin unique objects. In the nineties of the 20th century, the Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan) became the residence of the president of the republic. At this time, large-scale restoration work began.
Since 1995, work began on the construction of the Kul-Sharif mosque. Today it is one of the largest in Europe. The Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan) is a one-of-a-kind, striking example of the synthesis of Russian and Tatar architectural styles. It is also the most northern point spread of Islamic culture in the world.
Today many tourists from different countries of the world visit Tatarstan. The landmark of the republic that arouses the greatest interest is the Kazan Kremlin. It should be noted that in order to inspect all its structures, it will take at least two days, and sightseeing tour lasts only an hour and a half. But, since we are not limited in time, we will get to know the sights of the Kremlin in more detail.
Kremlin buildings
The Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan) is a museum-reserve occupying an area of 13.45 hectares. The perimeter of the walls is about 1.8 thousand meters. On this vast territory there are the WWII Memorial Museum, the Museum of Islam, the Hermitage-Kazan Center, the Museum of the History of Tatarstan and other institutions.
Spasskaya Tower
This tower houses the Main Gate to the Kremlin. Architects Shiryai and Yakovlev built the tower in 1556. The height of this structure is 47 meters. The tetrahedral base has a straight arched opening. The octagonal tier has arched openings on each side and is the belfry where the alarm bell is located.
On top there is a brick cone, which is crowned with a five-pointed star. Another octagonal cone houses a striking clock. They glorified the Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan). The interesting design of the first clocks, which were installed in the 18th century, interested many foreign craftsmen producing such mechanisms. This was explained by the fact that the clock was designed in a very unusual way - the dial rotated around fixed hands.
They were replaced with a traditional analogue in 1780. The clock that is located on the walls of the Spasskaya Tower today was installed in 1963. It is noteworthy that with the start of the chiming clock, the snow-white walls gradually turn a rich crimson color.
Offices
The project of the provincial chancellery was developed by the architect from Moscow V. I. Kaftyryev. The building appeared in the Kremlin at the end of the 18th century. There were offices (for receptions) and living rooms for the governor's family. The second floor was dedicated to a luxurious throne room with choirs for the orchestra. In the place where the Sovereign's courtyard was located in the 15th-17th centuries, a guardhouse was built in the mid-19th century.
Today, the premises of the former chancellery house the Department of External Relations of the President of Tatarstan, the Central Election Commission and the Arbitration Court.
Transfiguration Monastery
The Kazan Kremlin, the description of which can be seen in almost all advertising brochures of the city, is famous for another object. In the southeast of the Kremlin territory there is a monastery complex. In its center are the remains of the Transfiguration Cathedral, destroyed in the twenties of the 20th century. At the foot of the main wall of the cathedral you can see a small cave, which since 1596 was the burial place of the Kazan miracle workers.
The fraternal building borders the monastery fence. In 1670, monastic cells were built here. Much later, a gallery and a treasury house were erected. The Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, as well as the archimandrite’s chambers, are located at the western wall of the complex. The church building was reconstructed according to the design of A. Schmidt in 1815. It is interesting that during the reconstruction the basement of the 16th century was preserved in in its original form.
Junker School
On the territory of the Kremlin there is an arena, which was built according to a design previously built in St. Petersburg. This building was intended for combat training. Today the Institute of Literature and Art is located here. Ibragimova. Behind the arena is the school building. It was created by the architect Pyatnitsky as barracks for cantonists.
The building was transferred to the military department in 1861, and later a cadet school was opened in it.
Kul Sharif Mosque
In the courtyard of the school there is the most beautiful mosque in the city. Four minarets soared fifty-seven meters into the sky. The capacity of this grandiose structure is 1,500 people. The minarets are painted turquoise, which gives the building a surprisingly light image. In addition to the mosque, the complex includes a huge open library-museum, a publishing center and the office of the imam.
Round small beautiful building with a turquoise dome, located south of the mosque, is a fire station, which is stylistically associated with architectural complex. Kul Sharif was recreated in 2005. Funds for its construction were donated by citizens, as well as enterprises of the capital.
Blagoveshchensky cathedral
This is the oldest stone structure in Kazan that has survived to this day. It was consecrated in 1562. The architecture of the cathedral traces the trends of Pskov, Vladimir, Ukrainian and Moscow architecture. The helmet-shaped crowns, located on the side heads, were replaced in 1736 with bulbous ones. The central dome is made in the Ukrainian Baroque style.
In the main basement part of the temple, a museum of Orthodoxy of the Volga region was created. A little further is the bishop's house, which was built in 1829 on the site where the palace of the Kazan bishops was previously located. The ensemble is completed by a consistory. This building was rebuilt from the bishop's stables.
Artillery yard
Behind the mosque and the school is the Cannon Yard, or more precisely, its southern building. Exactly this ancient building complex - it was built at the very beginning of the 17th century. An artillery factory began operating here in the 19th century. And last year restoration took place here. The creation of the exhibition of the Cannon Yard Museum began.
Nowadays, the complex hosts permanent exhibitions, demonstrations of fashion collections, and chamber performances. Near the southern building you can see a fragment of a brick building on a stone foundation. In terms of its depth, this object dates back to the Khan era of the Kremlin. In those days, residential buildings were built here.
Governor's Palace
It was built in 1848 for the governor of Kazan with royal chambers for especially honored guests. The work was supervised by K. A. Thon, who is known for his amazing works. This is the Cathedral of Christ and the Bolshoi in Moscow. The Khan's palace ensemble was previously located on this site.
The second floor of the palace is connected to the palace church by a passage. It was called Vvedenskaya and was built in the 17th century. Today the Museum of the History of Statehood operates inside the church, and the President of Tatarstan and his family live in the governor’s palace.
Tower Syuyumbike
This is the symbol of Kazan. The tower was named after the Tatar queen. As the legend says, Ivan the Terrible, who learned about the beauty of Syuyumbik, sent messengers to Kazan with an offer beautiful girl become the queen of Moscow. But the envoys brought a refusal from the proud beauty. The angry tsar captured Kazan. The girl was forced to agree to Ivan the Terrible’s proposal, but she put forward a condition: that in seven days there should be a tower in the city that would outshine all existing minarets in height.
Ivan the Terrible fulfilled his beloved's wish. During the festive feast, Syuyumbike said that she wanted to say goodbye hometown looking from the height of the newly built tower. Having climbed to the top platform, she rushed down.
Externally, this building is very reminiscent of the Moscow Kremlin. Unfortunately, no exact data has been preserved about the time of creation of this attraction.
The tower consists of five tiers, which decrease in size. The last levels are octahedrons, which are crowned by a tent in the form of an octagonal truncated pyramid and a spire with a crescent. From the spire to the ground, the height of the structure is 58 meters. In the last century, three reconstructions took place here, since it was recorded that today the deviation from the vertical of the spire is 1.98 meters.
Taynitskaya Tower
Below Syuyumbike there are the Tainitsky entrance gates. This name was given to them in honor of the dungeon that leads to the source. It was used during the siege of the city local residents. Previously, the tower was called Nur-Ali. The Russian residents of the city called her Muraleeva. It was blown up during the capture of the Kremlin. It was through these gates that Ivan IV entered the city.
The tower was restored, but the architectural decoration was done in the 17th century. Now on the upper tier there is a cafe “Muraleevy Vorota”.
Kazan Kremlin: excursions, prices, opening hours
The Kremlin excursion department invites city guests and local residents to take a walk through the museum-reserve, accompanied by professional staff. Tours are conducted in Tatar, Russian, German, English, Turkish, Italian and French.
The entrance is open daily through the Spasskaya Tower. The Tainitskaya Tower is also the entrance to the Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan). Opening hours: in summer - from 8:00 to 22:00, and in winter - until 18:00.
The cost of the excursion for a group of six people is 1,360 rubles. For a group of more than six people - 210 rubles per adult.
How to get there?
The Kazan Kremlin (Tatarstan), whose address is Kremlevskaya, 2, is located on the left bank of the Volga. You can get here by buses No. 6, 29, 37, 47, trolleybuses No. 4, 10, 1 and 18. Stop “TSUM”, “Ul. Bauman" or by metro - stop "Kremlevskaya".
Kazan Kremlin
In the UNESCO lists it is listed as “the only surviving Tatar fortress.” But, so as not to mislead you, let's tell the truth. In front of you is a Russian fortress, built on the site of a Tatar one by Pskov masters Ivan Shiryai and Postnik Yakovlev, nicknamed Barma.
The Tatar fortress was built from wood. Eyewitnesses describe oak walls in two rows, between which sand and stone were poured. Stone houses in the Kremlin itself and in the surrounding suburbs were made of river rubble, which is “afraid” of fire and crumbles. Therefore, after the capture of Kazan, the city was completely rebuilt and today, alas, apart from the foundations, not a single building from the period of the Kazan Khanate has survived!
So we see Spasskaya Tower and on its sides are two later reconstructed turrets. The one on the right once housed the “Black” prison, in the basement of which the Yaik Cossack Emelyap Pugachev was kept.
He was imprisoned here because “after getting drunk, he called himself an empirator in taverns.” The prisoners earned their own food, so Pugachev walked around the city all day with a guard, begging for alms. The soldier accompanying him was old and blind, and soon the Cossack fled. Right there in the city he hid in a hole, then the Old Believers - “kindred souls” - transported him to the other side of the Volga, from where he left for the free Yaik. Just a year later, in July 1774, the Cossack returned as an “ampire” and besieged the city. But Pugachev was hampered by the unbearable heat that set in that summer. The heat was such that “haystacks in the meadows and gunpowder in guns burst into flames, and people escaped standing up to their necks in the river.” Fire and looting began. Pugachev could no longer gather his drunken army together!
The Spasskaya Tower has survived to this day in its original form. Only the Outer Chapel, which was, as it were, “stuck” in front of the entrance to the tower, and the double-headed eagle, which crowned its crown until the revolution of 1917, were lost, and a deep ditch was filled in, over which a drawbridge was thrown. The tower itself was not always white stone; at one time it was painted with ocher.
Now let's enter the Kremlin. Pay attention to the thickness of the walls and the hinges remaining from the fortress gates. We are located on the shortest street in Kazan (about 500 meters long), which is named after the Red Commissar Yakov Sheinkman, who was shot by the White Czechs near the Kremlin walls. The rebel regiment of Czechs in August 1918 drove the Reds out of the city in two days, during which time the entire gold reserve of the Russian Empire, which had been transported here shortly before from Moscow, disappeared from the vaults of the Kazan Bank. They say that gold was transported from Kazan on sixteen carts towards the city of Laishev. Some of the carts got lost there...
Near Kazan, the future famous writer Yaroslav Hasek went over to the side of the Reds. True, here he introduced himself by the name of his literary hero - Josef Schweik! He was appointed commandant of Bugulma, where, according to eyewitnesses, he zealously set to work. He passed sentence on the enemies of the revolution and carried it out himself. Here he got married, but when leaving Russia and filling out the form, he entered “single” in the “marital status” column.
In Prague, Hasek’s homeland, they well remember this “page” of his biography, red with blood, and in Bugulma, on the contrary, they are even proud that he “managed” so well here. IN provincial town Grateful descendants opened the Jaroslav Hasek Literary Museum in the building of the former commandant's office.
Kul Sharif Mosque
To our left, if you follow the signs, there is a passage to the Kul Sharif Cathedral Mosque - this is the largest religious building Muslims in northeast Russia.
“...The wide popularity of Kul Sharif in the last period of the existence of the Kazan Khanate is confirmed by many historical sources, as well as information preserved in popular memory and summarized by Shigabutdin Mardzhani. Based on them, it can be argued that Kul Sharif in the Khanate on the eve of his fall was the head of the Muslim clergy, the supreme seid. Andrei Kurbsky, describing the episode associated with the capture of Kazan by the Russian army in 1552, calls him in the European style the “great biskup,” that is, the bishop, and adds that the Tatars themselves consider Kul Sharif the “great anaryi,” or “amir.”
Supreme Sayyid Kul Sharif died during the capture of Kazan by the Russians in 1552 during a battle with them. Marjani leaning on folk legends, reports that Kul Sharif with his followers, united in a special military unit “regiment”, consisting of young dervishes and Sufis, defended themselves up to the madrasah building, then, retreating, climbed to its roof, where they were stabbed to death and fell down. Thus the life of this outstanding personality of the era of the Kazan Khanate was tragically interrupted.
Annunciation Cathedral of the Kazan Kremlin
If, during the construction of the Kul-Sharif Cathedral Mosque, archaeologists tried to restore a religious building destroyed during the siege, then they would have to take as a basis St. Basil's Cathedral on Red Square in Moscow, built “for the conquest of the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates,” as there is an assumption that after the conquest of the Kazan Khanate, the same Pskov masters who rebuilt the Kazan Kremlin erected a small copy of one of the enemy’s architectural symbols in the very center of Moscow. However, for some unknown reasons, they then began to build the main Orthodox (Epiphany) Cathedral on the land of the Gentiles.
The consecration of the five-domed Cathedral took place in 1562. For construction, as the Kazan Scribe Book reports, “1148 rubles 24 kopecks and half were spent, and iron was purchased for 100 rubles.” The influence of the styles of Pskov, Vladimir and Moscow architecture is felt in the forms of the Cathedral.
Since then, all royal persons have attended services here. Russian Empire from Peter I to Nicholas II. Today the Cathedral has been restored and is open to the public; church services are held here.
Tower Syuyumbike
Now from the Annunciation Cathedral we will proceed to the leaning tower of Syuyumbike (Syuyum is a female name, and Bika, or Bike, is a respectful address to an adult woman).
She really falls to the side Presidential Palace, on which you see the flag of Tatarstan with the coat of arms - a white leopard. Why this particular animal was chosen, one can only guess, because leopards have never been found on the fauna-rich land of Tatarstan.
The deviation of the tower from the main axis is 1.98 meters. This slope is clearly visible next to the Annunciation Cathedral.
Tower Syuyumbike- architectural and spiritual symbol of Kazan. Her image can be found on many emblems of various Tatar societies, for example, the “Association of Tatars in America.” We can also recall an analogue of the Tatar tower in Moscow - this is the building of the Kazan railway station.
No written sources containing mention of the time of construction of the tower and its original purpose have been found. On the earliest plans of the city of the 18th century, it is shown as the entrance to the courtyard of the commandant’s house, which stood on the site of the “old Tsar’s courtyard.”
Favorable location of the building on the very high point the hill suggests its use as a watchtower. Inside, the narrow staircase galleries are designed in such a way that just one archer could hold off an entire detachment of the enemy with a spear. A supply of stones, tow, resin, spears and arrows, as well as provisions would allow the siege to be maintained long time a small group of defenders.
Before the revolution, the Syuyumbike tower was open to tourists and served observation deck. On the oak door of the upper tier there is an inscription made by a certain traveler - “Gavrilov was here.”
Some researchers are inclined to believe that the Syuyumbike tower with “non-Russian architecture” was built by Pskov craftsmen on the foundation of the high seven-tier gates, dilapidated during the capture of Kazan, installed at the entrance to the Khan’s Palace. Perhaps the Russian masons were struck by the shape of the gate and they did not rebuild it, but only restored its former appearance. On one side it was the front gate, on the other - a watchtower, on the third - a minaret for calling for Friday prayers, as well as for announcing the khan's decrees to the people. There is another version according to which the tower structure is a mausoleum or funeral mosque.
Many legends are associated with the Syuyumbike tower. There is a legend that it was built on the burial site of three Muslim saints, to whose graves local residents and dervishes went to worship. And recently, at the foot of the tower, archaeologists excavated burials of the khan period, where the last Kazan khans rest, including Safa-Girey, who died in 1549. A legend passed on by the Tatars from generation to generation has been preserved, telling about the crying of Queen Syuyumbike over the resting place of her beloved husband.
Folk tales depict Syuyumbike as an indescribable beauty, having heard about which, Ivan IV sent ambassadors to her with an offer to become the queen of Moscow. And Syuyumbike’s refusal was the reason for the Russian campaign against Kazan. When Russian troops besieged the city, the proud Khansha agreed to the marriage on the condition that within a week the archers would be able to raise the tower higher than all the minarets of the “Pearl of the East.” The princess's demand was fulfilled on time. Seven days - seven tiers! During the wedding feast, the bride expressed a desire to take a last look at her hometown from the height of the seven-tiered tower. She climbed to the very top platform and rushed down.
In fact, it was much more prosaic. After the capture of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible, on the orders of the Russian Tsar, she was forcibly married to Kasimov’s Khan Shah-Ali, who was pro-Moscow. This marriage served the king as the best reason for refusing her father, the Nogai Khan Yusuf, who asked to return his daughter and grandson Utyamysh. About him, the king wrote to the khan, “We hold your grandson for my son.” In fact, he was excommunicated from his mother and baptized. In one of the Moscow monasteries the grave of Syuyumbike’s son has been preserved; a new name is engraved on the slab - Simeon.
Monument to Russian soldiers who died during the capture of Kazan by the troops of Ivan the Terrible
From the site near the Syuyumbike tower there is a view of the Kazanka River, which flows into the Volga a few kilometers from here. If you look closely, you will see an acropolis monument standing in the water, resembling a small pyramid, erected in 1823 in memory of the capture of Kazan. In 1552, the bodies of dead soldiers were brought here to a hastily dug mass grave. Despite the fact that not only Orthodox Christians took part in the siege of the city, but also Gentiles who went over to the side of the Russian Tsar, buried everyone indiscriminately and had Christian funerals. Later, a chapel was built over the grave, and after the Kuibyshev Reservoir overflowed, the water approached the monument, turning it into an island.
Why was it decided to bury the soldiers at this particular place? According to chronicle sources, it was here that the headquarters of Ivan the Terrible was located (the tsar, by the way, was only 24 years old at the time of the siege). From his royal tent he led the capture of the city. There is a version that an underground hole led from Ivan the Terrible’s tent to the walls of the Kremlin. Allegedly, it existed even before the revolution, and Nicholas II himself, when visiting the sights of the city, went down into it, but the rubble prevented him from getting to the Kremlin. Be that as it may, one thing is certain that engineer Butler, who was specially brought to blow up the fortress walls with “Apglitz bombs,” approached the wall unnoticed through dug passages and laid barrels of gunpowder under its base. After the explosion, two breaches were formed. One of the explosions occurred just under the wall that overlooks the tomb monument.
Kazan was besieged by a 150,000-strong army against 33,000 defenders, and the Russian Tsar had 160 cannons, as well as the engineer Butler with his “infernal machines.”
On October 2, 1552, the Kazan Khanate was annexed to the Russian kingdom, and the last khan, Yadyger, was captured.
Ivan the Terrible had a Kazan hat made from ferrets, which were found in abundance in the local forests, and decorated with precious stones from the khan’s staff.
Apart from a dozen pebbles, nothing valuable was found in the Khan's palace. The treasury was empty, which later gave rise to the legend of a treasure at the bottom of Lake Kaban.
They say that the king received only the Khan's library with Arabic volumes. They added to his legendary collection of rare books, which, however, are still being searched for.
This was the fifth Russian siege of the capital of the Kazan Khanate. The previous ones ended in failure (once even the cunning khan, like Kutuzov, ordered the capital to be surrendered to enemy troops. A month later he entered the city back and rebuilt it on the site of the ashes new town more beautiful than before!).
The fifth campaign was much better prepared. Higher along the Volga on the island of Sviyazhsk, a fortress was pre-built for wintering troops and storing weapons and fodder. A temple and a monastery were also erected here to conduct missionary activities among the “non-Christians.” The boats, loaded with everything necessary for the siege of the city, regularly sailed from Sviyazhsk to Kazan. Today, you can get to the island of Sviyazhsk either by water on an excursion boat or by land. A dam leads to the island from the village of Vasilyevo. Sviyazhsk has retained the charm of the Russian province; services are held in its churches, darkened by time. Several dozen monks support life on an island forgotten by civilization. Here, on the church vaults painted by icon painters, you can see a rare image of St. Christopher the Pseglot... but with a horse's head.
Tainitsky Gate
On the left side of the Syuyumbike tower is the Cannon Yard (the inscription about this says on the weather vane). Blacksmith workshops have long been located here, where chain mail, armor, arrow and spear tips, swords were made, and cannons and cannonballs were cast.
Now let's head down to Tainitsky Gate. One glance is enough to understand that this is not a new building, but a really old fortification. Inside it you will hear the hum of footsteps and feel the coolness of the past. Pay attention to the thickness of the walls and massive fastenings for gates and bars, as well as the characteristic cranked - from left to right - passage into the fortress. This was done so that the enemy army, armed with swords and shields, would face the fortress garrison on its unprotected side during a siege. After all, the shield was usually held in the left hand, and the sword in the right!
The Taynitskaya Tower was erected in the 16th century on the site of the Nur-Ali Tower, which was blown up during the siege of Kazan. It received its new name from the exploded secret passage to the spring from which the besieged took water. After the capture of Kazan, Ivan the Terrible solemnly entered the city through these gates.
Coin of St. Wenceslas and the 1000th anniversary of Kazan
In 1997, during excavations on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin, archaeologists found a lead coin, which, according to the largest numismatist in Europe, Czech researcher Jarmila Haskova, was made in Prague. The most plausible minting date can be considered 929-930. At this time, jewelry was made from lead. In addition, there is a hole on the coin. This allows us to conclude that the coin was also used as decoration. The coin is unique - the only one in the world. By this archaeological find it was proven that Kazan is already more than a hundred years old.
(EGROKN)
object no. 1610053000(Wikigida DB)
The Kremlin territory is an irregular polygon in plan, repeating the contours of the Kremlin hill, stretched from the northwest, from the Kazanka River, to the southeast, to May 1 Square. Located on the cape of a high terrace on the left bank of the Volga and the left bank of the Kazanka.
Khan's citadel ( Ark) was surrounded by oak (possibly stone in places) walls, up to 9 meters thick with 4 travel towers: Nur-Ali, Elabuga, Big and Tyumen Gates. Ilisty Bulak (from Tat. "sleeve", a channel connecting the Kazanka River and Lake Kaban) defended the fortress from the west; and with the least protected south- east side the fortress was fenced with deep ditches.
Andrei Kurbsky left the following description of Kazan: “And from the Kazan River the mountain is so high that you can’t even close your eyes; there is a city on it and the royal chambers and mosques are very high, walled, where their dead kings were laid, we remember the number of them, five of them ... "(“walled” - stone).
According to legend, the cathedral mosque had 8 minarets; at the mosques there were madrassas and mausoleums (durbe). There is every reason to believe that the appearance of the mosques was similar to the stone buildings of the same time in Kasimov and Bulgar, where the smooth planes of the walls contrast with elegant carved and ceramic inserts of decorative elements.
The tower consists of 7 tiers: the first three tiers are square in plan and have open galleries, the remaining four are octagonal. The tower is completed by a 6-sided brick tent (height 58 meters or 34 fathoms 6 feet), which until 1917 was crowned with a double-headed eagle resting on a gilded “apple” (according to the legends of the Kazan Tatars, important documents related to history and culture were enclosed in the ball Tatars). The edges of all tiers are decorated with blades or thin brick ridges. There is a through passage in the lower tier of the tower. On the western and eastern facades, the pylons of the lower tier each have 2 attached columns of the Corinthian order, crossed in the middle of the height by “typically Russian horizontal ridges.” The walls are brick, the mortar is lime, the foundation rests on oak piles. From 1917 to the 1930s, the Russian coat of arms was replaced by a crescent; in the 1930s, the crescent was removed; in the 1990s, the crescent was re-installed on the tower. The tower is included in the list of the forty leaning towers of the world. Its deviation from the vertical is 2 meters. The deviation occurred due to subsidence of the foundation in one part. To date, the fall of the tower has been stopped.
Palace (Vvedenskaya) Church
In the authoritative work “Kazan in historical and cultural monuments. Ed. S. S. Aidarova, A. Kh. Khalikova, M. Kh. Khasanova, I. N. Aleeva,” the authors are inclined to the version that the Palace Church “was erected on the site where the Nur-Ali mosque stood during the period of the Kazan Khanate,” however this version is based on later sources (explications to the city plan of 1768, where the temple is indicated as “a church facing from a mosque”) and is one of the hypotheses for the history of the Vvedenskaya Church (consecrated in the 19th century in honor of the Descent of the Holy Spirit).
The Vvedenskaya Church was severely damaged by the fire of 1815 and stood in ruins for a long time. By order of Nicholas I, who visited Kazan in 1836, the church was restored according to the “highly” approved project in 1852 as a palace at the Governor’s Palace. In 1859, the church was consecrated in honor of the Descent of the Holy Spirit. The new temple accurately reproduced the design scheme and stylistic features of the former Vvedensky Church, the architectural analogues of which in Kazan can be considered the destroyed Vvedensky Cathedral of the Kizichesky Monastery, and the Resurrection Cathedral of the New Jerusalem Monastery (“Bishop’s Dacha”), which also had covered arched galleries and a stepped volume scheme. The palace temple of the Descent of the Holy Spirit itself with the chapel of St. The martyr Queen Alexandra occupied only the second floor; on the first floor there was a chapel in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the temple icon to which was donated in the mid-19th century by Anna Davydovna Boratynskaya.
The alternation of 4 and 8-sided volumes, the stepped structure of the church itself, is consonant with the stepped architecture of the Syuyumbike tower, surpassing the watchtower in the richness of its decoration.
Nowadays there is a Museum of the history of statehood of the Tatar people and the Republic of Tatarstan.
Presidential palace
The Palace of the Kazan Governor is located in the northern part of the Kremlin, on the site where in ancient times there was the palace of the Kazan khans, and in the 18th century - the chief commandant's house. The building was built in the 40s. XIX century in the so-called pseudo-Byzantine style. The project for the “house of the military governor with premises for imperial apartments” was drawn up by the famous Moscow architect K. A. Ton, author of the project for the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. The palace consists of a main building and a circle of services adjacent to the courtyard. The construction of the palace was led by the architect A. I. Peske, sent from St. Petersburg, who rebuilt Kazan after the city fire of 1842. The interior decoration was carried out under the leadership of the architect M. P. Korinfsky, one of the architects of the Kazan Imperial University complex. The center of the main facade is a risalit, completed by a front with three keeled arches, possibly similar to the architecture of the Khan's palace. The building has two porches on 2 order columns with arched doorways. The first and second floors are divided by a number of order pilasters and arched window openings. The facade is a semicircle in plan and has a passage to the palace courtyard. The eclectic decor of the building combines elements of Russian classicism (partitioning with the Corinthian order, rustication of the 1st floor, general symmetry), baroque (bracing of the entablature above the beams of columns of the main projection, the character of the pediments of the porticoes) and ancient Russian architecture (hanging weights of the paired arches of the windows of the 2nd floor, keel-shaped zakomaras of the central risalit, the nature of the figured supports of the arched suspended passage to the Palace Church).
During the Soviet period, the building housed the Presidium of the Supreme Council and the Council of Ministers of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Currently it is the residence of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan.
Kul Sharif Mosque
The fraternal building in the northern part of the monastery has been preserved; brick fence on the eastern side of the monastery, the Church of St. Nicholas the Ratnogo, reconstructed in the forms of the 19th century (which served as a teahouse in the Soviet time here is a military unit); the basement of the Transfiguration Cathedral, which was blown up in the 1930s; the foundation of the monastery bell tower with the church of St., destroyed after 1917. Barbarians in the lower tier, the foundation of the Church of St. Cyprian and Justinia.
Public offices building (provincial office)
The 2-story building of the governor's office - public places - is located on the right side of the main Kremlin street and the Spasskaya Tower. The project was drawn up by V.I. Kaftyrev, who was sent by the Senate to Kazan in 1767 to detail the general plan of the city, developed by the commission of St. Petersburg and Moscow after the great fire in Kazan in 1765. The main floor was the second floor, where senior officials and important visitors climbed up the main staircase, and where the “audience” hall was located in front of the “trial chamber” - a central hall with 4 windows. Adjoining it were the “secret” and “secretary” rooms; in the remaining rooms there were “official servants”. The building has a basement with vaulted rooms. For access to the long courtyard between the public offices building and the eastern entrance Kremlin wall, the building has two through passages dividing the building into 3 sections. The building of the former Consistory adjoins the building on the north side.
Cannon yard complex
The cannon yard ensemble consists of four buildings. One of the largest factories in Russia for the production and repair of artillery pieces was located here. The Kazan Cannon Factory contributed to the victory of Russian weapons in the War of 1812. After the fire of 1815, the factory ceased to exist. Recently the Weapon Museum - Spirit of the Warrior - was opened here.
Consistory building
The building of the ecclesiastical department in the 19th century. During Soviet times, the building housed the Ministry of Health of the TASSR.
Bishop's House
Manege
The drill arena for conducting exercises at the Kazan Military School was built in the 1880s according to a design of 1881 carried out in St. Petersburg. The engineering solution for the roof of the building made it possible to cover a significant area (18 x 56 meters) with single-span rafter structures. After carried out in 2003-2006. During the restoration, it is planned to create a storage and reading room in the building for the Museum of Ancient Books and Manuscripts.
Guardhouse building
It is located in the southeast corner, to the right of the main entrance of the Spasskaya Tower. The building was built in the 19th century on the site where, since the 18th century, there had been a stone workshop - a warehouse for military equipment at the provincial chancellery, which stood nearby. The architecture of the building is extremely ascetic.
Lost buildings and structures of the Kazan Kremlin
- The 17th century bell tower of the Annunciation Cathedral (destroyed in 1928, had 5 tiers and served as a storage place for the largest bell of pre-revolutionary Kazan),
- Transfiguration Cathedral (bombed in the 1930s);
- Bell tower with the Church of St. Barbarians in the lower tier (destroyed after 1917),
- Church of St. Cyprian and Justinia.
Archaeological research of the Kazan Kremlin
The basis for archaeological research was laid in the 19th century by Kazan local historians, professor of KSU (now KFU) N.P. Zagoskin and P.A. Ponomarev, who examined the pit on the site of the building under construction Junker School. Significant archaeological excavations were carried out in the 1920s. N. F. Kalinin and N. A. Bashkirov. Systematic research conducted since 1971 under the leadership of L. S. Shavokhin and A. Kh. Khalikov made it possible to determine the stratigraphy of cultural deposits. In the 1990s, a number of archaeological studies were carried out, in particular, which did not confirm the version that the Annunciation Cathedral was allegedly built on the site of the main mosque of the Khanate: no archaeological foundations from the period of the Kazan Khanate were identified under the cathedral.
Year of inclusion in the List world heritage: 2000
Kazan, one of the ancient cities of Russia, is located on the banks of the Volga, in its middle reaches, approximately 700 km east of Moscow.
The historical center of Kazan the Kremlin went through several stages in its historical development, which together cover a thousand-year period. First, a wooden fortress arose (at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries), then a stone one (12th century). From the second half of the 13th century. until the middle of the 16th century. The Kremlin served as the center of the Kazan Principality as part of the Golden Horde, and then the Kazan Khanate.
In the autumn of 1552, after a long 40-day siege, Kazan was captured by the army of Ivan the Terrible. The Kazan Khanate joins Rus', and a new stage in the development of the ancient city begins. By order of the Russian Tsar, the Kazan Kremlin is being reconstructed, the fortress walls destroyed during the assault are being restored in stone, and new buildings are being erected (for example, the main entrance tower Spasskaya). The reconstruction is carried out in the old Russian architectural style, for which Pskov architects Postnik Yakovlev and Ivan Shiryai are involved in the work. At the same time, the fortification system of the Tatar fortress that was formed before the capture is preserved, and the location of the ruler’s palace and religious buildings, as well as the main passage gates with roads and streets diverging from them, are preserved. In place of the mosques of the fortress, churches are built and a monastery complex is erected. The city turns into a stronghold of Orthodoxy on the Volga land, becomes important center pilgrimage.
The Kremlin territory has the configuration of an irregular polygon, elongated from north to south under the influence of the terrain. This polygon is clearly outlined by the fortifications of the Kremlin - its fortress walls 8–12 m high and towers, of which there were originally 13. Modern walls and towers were built in the period of the 16th-18th centuries, but at their base archaeologists discovered much more ancient masonry, attributed to to the period of the X-XVI centuries. The total length of the walls is 1800 m.
Of the towers of the Kazan Kremlin, two are most famous. Firstly, this is the main entrance Spasskaya Tower with a gate church, made in the classic white stone style. Secondly, there is the Syuyumbeki watchtower, which stands alone, seven-tiered, 58 m high, built of red brick. Presumably, it was erected at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries, and named in honor of the last queen of the Kazan Khanate. However, about the origin, purpose and architectural style of the Syuyumbeki tower, appearance which contrasts sharply with the rest of the Kremlin’s structures, scientists have still not come to a consensus. Indeed, its appearance reveals features inherent not only in Russian and Tatar culture, but also in Italian, so there is even a version that Italian architects took part in its construction (and according to this version, the age of the tower increases even more - it dates back to the end of the 15th century) V.).
Inside the fortress walls there are both church and civil buildings. The main church building of the Kazan Kremlin is the Annunciation Cathedral; it is the oldest of all stone buildings in Kazan that have survived to this day. The cathedral was built of white stone in the middle of the 16th century, but was subsequently rebuilt several times and survived several fires and subsequent restorations and reconstructions. Its complex also includes the Bishop's House and the Consistory. The Orthodox church heritage of the Kazan Kremlin also includes the complex of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery next to the Spasskaya Tower.
The main civil building of the Kazan Kremlin dates back to the middle of the 19th century. Governor's Palace(architect K.A. Ton). Until 1917, it served as the residence of the Kazan governor, and now it is the residence of the President of Tatarstan. This palace was built on the site of the former residence of the Kazan khans, which included the khan's palace, surrounded by numerous pavilions, galleries and outbuildings. From it, only the remains of the Khan’s mosque, two old white-stone mausoleums and some other structures have survived to this day.
Thus, the Kazan Kremlin is an outstanding example of the synthesis of different artistic styles, demonstrates the interpenetration of different cultures (Bulgar, Golden Horde, Tatar, Russian, possibly Italian), and reflects the originality of various - successive - historical eras.
In the early 2000s. The Kazan Kremlin became the site of significant restoration work in preparation for the celebration of the city's millennium in August 2005. As part of the implementation of the federal target program “Preservation and Development of the Historical Center of Kazan” approved by the Government of the Russian Federation in 2001, work was carried out in the Kremlin to restore seven valuable objects, including: the Annunciation Cathedral, the Transfiguration Monastery, the Governor’s Palace, the Cannon Yard, etc. d. A huge new cathedral mosque, Kul-Sharif, was built, which became the symbolic successor to the main mosque of the same name in Khan’s Kazan, destroyed after the city was captured by the troops of Ivan the Terrible.
Since 1994, the Kazan Kremlin State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve has been operating.
The history of the creation of the Kazan Kremlin dates back to the 11th-12th centuries. Initially, the fortress was built as a defensive structure of Volga Bulgaria to protect against enemy attacks. Shopping arcades were located here, a mosque was built, and the main decoration of the square was the Kremlin. But everything was destroyed and burned in 1552 during an attack by the troops of Ivan the Terrible. After the conquest of Kazan, the new ruler ordered the Kremlin building to be rebuilt on Kazan Hill and the appearance of the administrative center to be restored.
In the 18th century, the Kazan Kremlin received the last enemy attack - Emelyan Pugachev in 1773 and defended its positions. The enemy retreated, but archaeologists still find the consequences of the destruction today.
After the creation of the Republic of Tatarstan in 1992, the Kazan Kremlin became the first residence of the president. Active work began to restore the cultural and historical heritage: buildings were restored, museum complexes. In 2000 unique museum under open air was listed cultural heritage UNESCO.
The main attractions of the Kremlin
One of the striking attractions of the Kazan Kremlin is the Kul Sharif Mosque. Built from snow-white marble, the mosque is decorated with blue domes and minarets. The mosque received its name in honor of the national hero of Tatarstan - Imam Khul Sharif. The imam took a direct part in defending the mosque during the attack by the troops of Ivan the Terrible and was killed. The mosque was burned and rebuilt for the 1000th anniversary of Kazan. Construction took 9 long years and became the main event in the capital's anniversary year. The Kul Sharif complex occupies an area of about 19 thousand sq.m. and consists of a mosque, foundation stone and administrative building. The mosque can accommodate 1,500 people, and the surrounding area can accommodate up to 10,000 people.
The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery and the Annunciation Cathedral of the Kazan Kremlin were built in the middle of the 16th century, the latter was rebuilt, reconstructed and restored several times. Currently, work is underway to connect these complexes to the Museum of Archeology of Tatarstan.
Another attraction of the Kazan Kremlin is the Siyumbike Tower, which is part of the Presidential Complex. The tower, 58 meters high, has a peculiar tilt to the side at 1.8 m from the axis. Thanks to the strengthening work carried out in 1998, it was possible to stop the fall of the tower.
Excursions around the Kazan Kremlin
The Kazan Kremlin is located in the central part of the capital of the republic. You can get here by public transport to the "TSUM" stop, or by metro to the "Kremlevskaya" station.
Entrance to the territory of the Kazan Kremlin is free for all visitors. Here you can order both group and individual tour. They will take you to all the important places and tell you a lot interesting information from the history of the fortress.
