Kazan's kremlin stands on a white-stone hill above the Kazanka river, near its meeting with the Volga, and its walls and towers enclose some of the oldest and most dramatic stories of the Tatar people. The fortress was the heart of the Khanate of Kazan, one of the successor states of the Golden Horde, until Ivan the Terrible besieged and stormed it in 1552, an event that opened the Volga to Russian expansion. In the centuries after, the Russians rebuilt the place in their own style, so that today it is a meeting of two worlds: the Annunciation Cathedral with its green domes and the great mosque, side by side.
The mosque is the Qolşärif, rebuilt and opened in 2005 for the millennium of the city, with a high white-and-blue structure and minarets that rise above the walls. It stands on the site of a mosque that was destroyed in the conquest, and it is a statement of Tatar identity as well as a place of prayer. A nearby leaning tower, named after Söyembikä, a queen of Kazan, is the kremlin's most famous symbol, though the stories about it are more legend than record. The complex was listed by UNESCO in 2000.
Kazan today is a city of over a million, lively, young and proud of its mixed Tatar and Russian character. The streets below the kremlin are full of cafes, and the pedestrian street of Bauman is where people stroll in the evening. The local food is rich and good: chak-chak, a sticky honey sweet; echpochmak, a triangular pie of meat and potato; and strong tea. Traditional tea houses serve all these in a warm, relaxed manner.
Riding in the centre of Kazan is not a pleasure, since traffic is heavy, parking near the kremlin is limited and the streets are busy with trams, buses and cars. The best approach is to leave the bike in a car park and enter on foot. Outside the city, the Volga plains are flat, wide and agricultural, with long straight roads and fields of sunflower and wheat. Fuel is available everywhere in the city and its suburbs. Summers are warm, with long evenings, and winters are bitterly cold, with snow and ice, so the riding season runs from May to September.