Kazan — summer 2014

I head out to do the tourist thing. Once again I find narrow streets filled with neoclassical buildings that are cheek by jowl with modern buildings and Soviet era construction.

Suddenly I spot this place. I'm amused. Is there a ‘sex poorly shop’ somewhere nearby?

My moment of sarcasm aside, I continue wandering.

The transliteration amused me here: fast fuud.

I'm rather astonished at the amount of graffiti in the city. It's all over. Some of it is even rather nice. Here's a typical example.

The National Assembly

International art gallery

The most well-known tourist destination in the city is the Alexander Nevski Cathedral, a Bulgarian Orthodox basilica. Nevsky was a Russian prince of Novgorod who defended Russia against the Germans and Swedes. The basilica was built in honor of the Russians who helped liberate the Bulgarians from the Turks during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878.

When you look at the church, you immediately notice that it does not have the onion domes typical of a Russian church. It seems to follow some neo-Byzantine principles instead. The inside is cool, even in the heat of summer. The place is enormous.

St. Hilarion, bishop of Mаglin

The Most Holy Saint Feodosi of Tarnovo

Holy Sunday Church

All the 24-hour convenience stores here seem to have ‘Non-Stop’ as their identifying mark.

Wow, real hotels are amazing. The hotel services book said that if you gave them your laundry after 9:30 a.m., they would have it to you the next morning. Instead, I gave them my laundry at 4:00 p.m., and they had it back by 7:00 p.m. I could get used to this. (Alas, I am way to cheap to ever have it be part of my life...)

I really did splurge on this hotel.

This is called бутер (pronounced [búter]), puff pastry, in this case stuffed with ham and cheese. Basically it's the same thing as a ham and cheese croissant.

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.