Time for a weekend outing! I've joined up with the rest of the international students at the Linguistic University to take the overnight train to Kazan, a city 200 miles to the east of Nizhny Novgorod. Waiting in the train station at Nizhny Novgorod, you can see an old Soviet mosaic.
On the train to Kazan. This is Paul, the other American studying here, who (of all things) happens to be from Portland as well. He's currently studying at PSU, but is spending this entire school year in Nizhny Novgorod.
Kazushiro, another student of Russian, comes from Yokohama.
We arrived at the Kazan train station a little before 6am.
The first impression of Kazan was a strange one. Many of the buildings looked deserted, while others (such as the one seen here) were partly destroyed, be it from human hand or fire. Another aspect of the city which also caught my attention was the bi-lingual environment. Kazan is the capital of Tartarstan, an autonomous republic in the heart of Russia. The Tatar people are descendants of the Mongolian hordes which came across this land in the 13th century. The language of the Tatars is written on most signs alongside Russian. It just so happens that Tartar is close to Kazak (they are both Turkic languages), and after readjusting my pronunciation a bit I could understand most signs in the city, as well as converse a bit with local Tartars. The sign, by the way, simply says "drugstore".
Much of the city is undergoing renovation, as this summer will mark the 1000th year since Kazan's founding. It's not every day that a city reaches a millennium, and everything in the city is being made ready for the upcoming celebrations. Here construction works left a message for the ladies, saying "Girls! We love you!"
The local Univermag, a mall-type place which can be found in many cities.
Sunday is not the day to go to Kazan, as most everything is closed. Hotel Tartarstan, a giant concrete block of Soviet times (not unlike Hotel Kazakhstan in Almaty), was the only option we could find for breakfast at 7am. On they way, we passed by a very cool clock.
A close up of the clock.
After eating, we headed back down the main street, known as Baumana, towards the Kazan Kremlin. A small, but very tall cathedral dominates the skyline.
McDonald's, Russian-style, with the colors of the Tartarstan flag underneath.