Kazan — summer 2014

This is St. Nicholas's church not far from my hotel. You would think I would be tired of such places by now, but this one I liked because it was fairly bright inside, the wall paintings were relatively new, and that meant you could actually read the Old Church Slavic written there.

The floral ornamentation of the outside is atypical.

This is the front of the Alexander Nevski church that I saw yesterday. Not sure what the big event they planned there is. Hm. I should wander up that way this evening and see what's what.

Ah, look! This enterprising young couple has jerry-rigged a swing out of a crane. Now why didn't I think of that?

While sitting in this café enjoying the view of Света Неделя [svéta nedélja] ‘Holy Sunday Church’ (of which there is more than one), I suddenly had the expectation of seeing Viktor Krum come flying by over the dome. Go, team Bulgaria!

Lots of lions around. The Bulgarian word for lion is лев [lev]. The unit of currency is the lev. And this statue is also a lev.