If You Are Not There... Memories of Kazan

It’s easy to fall in love with Kazan. It’s exotic, it’s friendly and the centre of the city is beautiful. The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, one of the first things that strikes you in Kazan is that it’s a bilingual city. All signs are written both in Russian and Tatar and there are as many Tatar flags flying as there are Russian. An incredibly proud people, the Tatars love to show off their city and their cultural heritage, even if their ethnic group is the minority in the republic. I came to Kazan without any expectations and found it to be the nicest mid-sized Russian city I have been to.



Everything was so easy. Nowhere in Russia have I been greeted with so many smiles and had so many people who wanted to talk to me or help me. Within an hour of leaving Moscow I had been inundated with advice and offers of assistance from my cabin-mates. Working in Moscow, it’s a battle just to give people free publicity. A complete disregard for money or common sense means that businesses here are often completely indifferent and sometimes downright rude when I come to review their establishment. In Kazan people fell over themselves to give me information and show off their business. Working there was a breeze.

And this of course left me in a much better mood than usual and also with more spare time to enjoy the city. Kazan’s most famous sight is its Kremlin and it is a mighty fine one. The walls, towers and many of the buildings date from the 16th Century. But today, the centerpiece is perhaps the Kul Sharif Mosque. Opened in 2005 to coincide with Kazan’s 1000 year anniversary it is reputedly the largest mosque in Europe. Just outside the Kremlin stands an imposing statue of the famous Tatar poet Musa Jalil. "If You Are Not There" is one of his poems.



Meanwhile the Kazan University is a renowned one. Perhaps its most famous student was Vladimir Ulyanovsk (Lenin), whose statue stands facing the university. But unlike the multitude of other Lenins that dot the country, here he is depicted as a young man. The university is also quite popular with foreign students – I encountered a number of them while in Kazan.



I could go on about the beauties of the city but you can read about them here. To keep this from stretching to a ridiculous length I’ll just recount one encounter that sticks in my memory. I generally don’t enjoy museums but in Kazan I thought I’d give them a go. The Museum of 1000 Years of Kazan was an amazing place, filled with interesting artifacts and information about the city’s history. Alone in the museum, a young Tatar girl quickly offered to be my guide. Really I’d just come to get the gist of the place and take a photo, but unperturbed by my lack of interest she proceeded to describe every exhibit in detail. I often tried to change the subject to stop the deluge of details coming out of her mouth but she dismissed my unrelated, silly questions with a one word answer and a stern look. At this rate it would have taken all day to see the place. So to speed things up a bit I said, “Sorry, I don’t really understand what you’re saying,” to which she replied, “You speak Russian very badly.”

A little affronted by this I said, “No, it’s just that I’ve never been to a museum before –”

“You’ve never been to a museum? How old are you?” she demanded incredulously.

“No, I’ve been to a museum before, but never one that only had information in Russian so I don’t understand a lot of the specific terminology you’re using.”

“Oh, well. I can speak in Tatar if you want.”

“I don’t think that will help.”

“Why not? Aren’t you Tatar?” The question was a bit of a shock. To look at me you wouldn’t think anyone would confuse me for a Tatar. Though a flight attendant on Turkish Airlines once started speaking to me in Turkish and was puzzled that I couldn’t understand him so who knows.

“No. I’m from Australia.”

“There are a lot of Tatars in Australia.”

“There might be, but I’m not one of them.”



And so the result of this exchange was that we walked past a few exhibits in silence before she launched into her detailed delivery again. Something I’d been wondering about was the interaction between Russians and Tatars. Was there any animosity or bad blood between the two? “No, not at all,” she told me. “We all live together as the same people.” Fair enough, I thought. It was the same response I had received from everyone I had asked. But then after a slight pause she added, “Anyway, there are more of them than there are of us, so…” This drew a quizzical expression for me. She stared at me in her penetrating style for a few seconds and then resumed the tour.

But while that comment was strange I don’t want to draw any conclusions from it. Everything I saw told me that there was complete harmony between Russians and Tatars in Kazan. When I finally convinced her to let me leave the museum she walked me outside and apologized that she couldn’t accompany me to the next place I was going. She seemed genuinely sad that we had to part and I had to admit that I was as well. She was a strange girl – so serious and with a deadpan expression permanently on her face. But, like everyone I met in Kazan, she was also so accommodating and proud. I was sorry to leave the city behind.