Kazan: thursday.

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We arrived at Hotel Fatima at about 10 in the morning. We all had a much needed shower, teeth clean and change of clothes, then left our comfortable rooms to stroll around the Kazan kremlin which is only two minutes walk away. It is the only fortress in the Russian Federation with both an orthodox cathedral and a mosque within its walls.

My good friend Chris W, who I shared so many good times with in Yaroslavl, lives and studies here now. Unfortunately being a holiday he also made plans to go away and is in Moscow with his parents, so I couldn't see him.

The sky was clear blue today and at the highest point of the city the breeze was fresh. It was a beautiful spring day, 16 degrees. A cobbled street runs down the middle of the kremlin; there are fir trees and elegant buildings on either side, many of which belong to the Tatar government. The enormous mosque of Kul Sharif has a courtyard to itself, which is just as stunning as the last time I saw it, in October last year.

We went into the mosque and climbed up to the top balcony, where we could look up to the bold arabic paintings on the ceiling and look down on the intricate carpet that covers the prayer hall. Underneath the mosque there is a museum of Islam; it has old maps of the islamic world - Tatarstan is the most northerly Sunni 'province' in the world.

When we left the kremlin at lunchtime we walked along ulitsa Kremlevskaya, the street that runs from the kremlin to the university. It is also paved and even, with attractive buildings on both sides. Kazan is 1001 years old and still looking very good. It is built on a hill, with the river Volga the lowest point and ulitsa Kremlevskaya apparently the highest. The streets are wide and well looked after, the houses are painted bright colours, and street and shop signs are in both Russian and Tatar languages. Walking around town I had the feeling of being in a lot of space, even though the place is quite busy. The cloudless blue sky seemed to be a thousand miles above me and I could see far into the distance. It doesn't feel like being in a muslim country - as far as I would know - but neither does it feel like walking through a Russian town. It has an atmosphere to itself, that for the most part is peaceful.

The main street in the city is ulitsa Baumana. It runs parallel to Kremlevskaya four hundred yards down the hill. Myself and the four girls stopped at Dom Chaya - 'Chei Yurt' in Tatar - for lunch. The waitresses were all cheerful old ladies, especially Margarita Petrovna who brought us coffee and told us which were the tastiest items on the menu. I ate beef 'olesh', a type of hot pasty that also has potato inside, and three piping hot black coffees in china tea cups with a lot of sugar.

We explored Baumana for the rest of the afternoon. It has dozens of clothes and mobile phone shops, each one with a speaker outside playing music into the street. There are a lot of tourists, most of them Russians, who all seem to be in a relaxed mood.

Tiredness took over in the evening, and I didn't stay for long in the bar we found. I walked back to Fatima, had another shower (a treat under hot clear water), read some of my homework and went to bed.

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Photos

Liza, myself, Sonia.
Sonia also studies in Tver, and joined us for three days.

Ulitsa Kremlevskaya at night.
And a full moon.

The two flags.
Wherever there is a Russian flag in Kazan there is the flag of Tatarstan next to it.