Kazan (English) Казань (Russian) Казан, Qazan (Tatar) |
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— Inhabited locality — | |
Kazan. |
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Kazan
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Coordinates: | |
Holiday | August 30[1] |
Administrative status | |
Country | Russia |
Federal subject | Republic of Tatarstan[2] |
Capital of | Republic of Tatarstan[2] |
Municipal status | |
Urban okrug | Kazan Urban Okrug |
Mayor[2] | Ilsur Metshin[2] |
Representative body | City Duma[2] |
Statistics | |
Area | 425.3 km2 (164.2 sq mi)[3] |
Population (2002 Census) | 1,105,289 inhabitants[4] |
- Rank | 8th |
- Density | 2,599 /km2 (6,730 /sq mi)[5] |
Time zone | MSK/MSD (UTC+3/+4) |
Founded | ~1005[3] |
Postal code(s) | 420xxx[6] |
Dialing code(s) | +7 843[7] |
Official website |
Kazan (Russian: Каза́нь; Tatar: Казан, Qazan) is the capital city of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia. The sixth largest city of Russia, it lies at the confluence of the Volga and Kazanka Rivers in European Russia. The Kazan Kremlin is a World Heritage Site. In April 2009, the Russian Patent Office granted Kazan the right to brand itself as the "Third Capital" of Russia. In 2009 it was chosen as the "sports capital of Russia".[8]
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The origin of the name is uncertain. The Tatar word qazan means 'boiler' or 'cauldron'. Alternately, it may have been derived from the Tatar qazğan, 'dug' (with reference to ditches). Qazan is originally a name for a special cooking pan, similar to the wok, but heavier. The belief that the city of Kazan is named after this object comes from the terrain's similarity to a qazan: the city is situated in a U-shaped lowland. Another, more romantic legend tells a story of a Tatar princess Söyembikä, who dropped a golden dish (golden qazan) into the river while washing it, and that the city was founded at that site. Additionally, legends of the Chuvash people refer to the Bulgarian Prince Khusan (Хусан) (this being the Chuvash rendering of the Muslim name Hasan) and that is the Chuvash name for the city.
There is a long-running dispute as to whether Kazan was founded by the Volga Bulgars in the early Middle Ages or by the Tatars of the Golden Horde in the mid-15th century, as written records before the latter period are sparse. If there were a Bulgar city on the site, estimates of the date of its foundation range from the early 11th century to the late 13th century (see Iske Qazan). It was a border post between Volga Bulgaria and two Finnic tribes, the (Mari and the Udmurt). Another vexatious question is where the citadel was built originally. Archaeological explorations have produced evidence of urban settlement in three parts of the modern city: in the Kremlin; in Bişbalta at the site of the modern Zilantaw monastery; and near the Qaban lake. The oldest of these seems to be the Kremlin.
If Kazan existed in the 11th and 12th centuries, it could have been a stop on a Volga trade route from Scandinavia to Iran. It was a trade center, and possibly a major city for Bulgar settlers in the Kazan region, although their capital was further south at the city of Bolğar.
After the Mongols devastated the Bolğar and Bilär areas in the 13th century, migrants resettled Kazan. Kazan became a center of a duchy which was a dependency of the Golden Horde. Two centuries later, in the 1430s, Hordian Tatars (such as Ghiasetdin of Kazan) usurped power from its Bolghar dynasty.
Some Tatars also went to Lithuania, brought by Vytautas the Great.
In 1438, after the destruction of the Golden Horde, Kazan became the capital of the powerful Khanate of Kazan. The city bazaar, Taş Ayaq (Stone Leg)' became the most important trade center in the region, especially for furniture. The citadel and Bolaq channel were reconstructed, giving the city a strong defensive capacity. The Russians managed to occupy the city briefly several times.
As a result of the Siege of Kazan (1552) Russia under Ivan the Terrible conquered the city for good and the majority of the population was massacred. During the governorship of Alexander Gorbatyi-Shuisky, most of the khanates's Tatar residents were killed or forcibly Christianized. Mosques and palaces were ruined. The surviving Tatar population was moved to a place 50 kilometres (31 mi) away from the city and this place was forcibly settled by Russian farmers and soldiers. Tatars in the Russian service were settled in the Tatar Bistäse settlement near the city's wall. Later Tatar merchants and handicraft masters also settled there. During this period, Kazan was largely destroyed as a result of several great fires. After one of them in 1579, the icon Our Lady of Kazan was discovered in the city.
In the early 17th century, at the beginning of the Time of Troubles in Russia, the Kazan Khanate declared independence with the help of the Russian population, but this independence was suppressed by Kuzma Minin in 1612.
In 1708, the Khanate of Kazan was abolished, and Kazan became the center of a guberniya. After Peter the Great's visit, the city became a center of shipbuilding for the Caspian fleet.
The major Russian poet Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin was born in Kazan in 1743, the son of a poor country squire of Tatar ancestry though himself having a thoroughly Russian identity.
Kazan was largely destroyed in 1774 as a result of the Pugachev revolt, a revolt by border troops and peasants led by the Don Cossack ataman (captain) Yemelyan Pugachev, but was rebuilt soon afterwards, during the reign of Catherine the Great. Catherine also decreed that mosques could again be built in Kazan, the first being Marjani Mosque. But discrimination against the Tatars continued.
In the beginning of the 19th century Kazan State University and printing press were founded by Alexander I. It became an important center for Oriental Studies in Russia. The Qur'an was first printed in Kazan in 1801. Kazan became an industrial center and peasants migrated there to join its industrial workforce. In 1875, a horse tramway appeared; 1899 saw the installation of a tramway.
After the Russian Revolution of 1905, Tatars were allowed to revive Kazan as a Tatar cultural center. The first Tatar theater and the first Tatar newspaper appeared.
In 1917 1917 Kazan Gunpowder Plant fire occurred in Kazan. In 1918, Kazan was a capital of the Idel-Ural State, which was suppressed by the Bolshevist government. In the Kazan Operation of August 1918, it was briefly occupied by Czechoslovak Legions. In 1920 (after the October Revolution), Kazan became the center of Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In the 1920s and 1930s, most of the city's mosques and churches were destroyed, as occurred elsewhere in the USSR.
During World War II, many industrial plants and factories to the west were relocated in Kazan, making the city a center of the military industry, producing tanks and planes.
In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the USSR, Kazan again became the center of Tatar culture, and separatist tendencies intensified. Since 2000, the city has been undergoing a total renovation. The historical center, including its Kremlin, has been rebuilt. A single-line metro opened on 27 August 2005. The Kazan Metro has six stations and there are plans to extend it.
Kazan celebrated its millennium in 2005, although the date of the "millennium", was fixed rather arbitrarily. During the millennium celebrations, the largest mosque in Russia, Qolsharif, was inaugurated in the Kazan Kremlin, the holiest copy of Our Lady of Kazan was returned to the city, and the "Millennium Bridge" was also inaugurated that year.[9]
See also: Iske Qazan
The city's population consists almost entirely composed of either Tatars (about 52 percent) and Russians (about 43 percent). The remainder consists of Chuvash, Ukranians, Azeri, and Jews. Major religions in Kazan city are Sunni Islam and Eastern Orthodoxy. Atheism is also popular. Minor religions are Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Krishnaism, and the Bahá'í Faith.
Russian and Tatar languages are widely spoken in the city. Russian is understood by practically all the population, apart from some older Tatars. Tatar is widely spoken mainly by Tatars. The derogatory term Mankurt (Mañqort) is used for Tatars who are ashamed of their own culture and language.
Population of Kazan city (01.01.2010)[10]:
Year | Population |
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1550 | 50,000 |
1557 | 7,000 |
1800 | 40,000 |
1830 | 43,900 |
1839 | 51,600 |
1859 | 60,600 |
1862 | 63,100 |
1883 | 140,000 |
1897 | 130,000 |
1917 | 206,600 |
1926 | 179,000 |
1939 | 398,000 |
1959 | 667,000 |
1979 | 989,000 |
1989 | 1,094,400 |
1997 | 1,076,000 |
2000 | 1,089,500 |
2002 | 1,105,289 (census) |
2008 | 1,120,200 |
2009 | 1,130,717 |
2010 | 1,136,566 |
Kazan has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) with long cold winters and warm, often hot dry summers. The warmest month is July with daily mean temperature near 20 °C (68 °F), coldest - January −12 °C (10.4 °F).
Climate data for Kazan (1971 - 2000) | |||||||||||||
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Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Record high °C (°F) | 3.8 (38.8) |
5.2 (41.4) |
11.0 (51.8) |
29.5 (85.1) |
33.8 (92.8) |
37.5 (99.5) |
37.9 (100.2) |
37.7 (99.9) |
32.3 (90.1) |
23.4 (74.1) |
15.0 (59) |
6.1 (43) |
37.9 (100.2) |
Average high °C (°F) | -8.2 (17.2) |
-7.2 (19) |
-0.6 (30.9) |
9.8 (49.6) |
18.9 (66) |
23.5 (74.3) |
25.0 (77) |
22.4 (72.3) |
15.8 (60.4) |
7.2 (45) |
-1.5 (29.3) |
-5.7 (21.7) |
8.3 (46.9) |
Average low °C (°F) | -14.9 (5.2) |
-14.0 (6.8) |
-7.9 (17.8) |
1.4 (34.5) |
7.9 (46.2) |
13.1 (55.6) |
15.0 (59) |
12.8 (55) |
7.6 (45.7) |
1.4 (34.5) |
-6.3 (20.7) |
-11.6 (11.1) |
0.4 (32.7) |
Record low °C (°F) | -46.8 (-52.2) |
-39.9 (-39.8) |
-31.7 (-25.1) |
-25.6 (-14.1) |
-6.5 (20.3) |
-1.4 (29.5) |
2.6 (36.7) |
1.6 (34.9) |
-5.4 (22.3) |
-23.4 (-10.1) |
-36.6 (-33.9) |
-43.9 (-47) |
-46.8 (-52.2) |
Precipitation mm (inches) | 35 (1.38) |
30 (1.18) |
25 (0.98) |
34 (1.34) |
38 (1.5) |
70 (2.76) |
66 (2.6) |
59 (2.32) |
55 (2.17) |
54 (2.13) |
44 (1.73) |
38 (1.5) |
548 (21.57) |
Source: [11] |
The city has a beautiful citadel (Russian: kreml, or, sometimes, Tatar: kirman), which was declared the World Heritage Site in 2000. Major monuments in the kremlin are the 5-domed 6-columned Annunciation Cathedral (1561–62) and the mysterious leaning Soyembika Tower, named after the last queen of Kazan and regarded as the city's most conspicuous landmark.
Also of interest are the towers and walls, erected in the 16th and 17th centuries but later reconstructed; the Qol-Şarif mosque, which is already rebuilt inside the citadel; remains of the Saviour Monastery (its splendid 16th-century cathedral having been demolished by the Bolsheviks) with the Spasskaya Tower; and the Governor's House (1843–53), designed by Konstantin Thon, now the Palace of the President of Tatarstan.
Next door, the ornate baroque Sts-Peter-and-Paul's Cathedral on Qawi Nacmi Street and Marcani mosque on Qayum Nasiri Street date back to the 18th century.
Central Kazan is divided into two districts by the Bolaq canal and Lake Qaban. The first district (Qazan Bistäse or Kazanskiy Posad), historically Russian, is situated on the hill, the second (İske Tatar Bistäse or Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda), historically Tatar, is situated between the Bolaq and the Volga. Mosques, such as Nurullah, Soltan, Bornay, Apanay, Äcem, Märcani, İske Taş, Zäñgär are in the Tatar district. Churches, such as Blagoveschenskaya, Varvarinskaya, Nikol'skaya, Tikhvinskaya, are mostly in the Russian part of the city. The main city-centre streets are Bauman, Kremlyovskaya, Dzerzhinsky, Tuqay, Puşkin, Butlerov, Gorkiy, Karl Marx and Märcani.
An old legend says that in 1552, before the Russian invasion, wealthy Tatars (baylar) hid gold and silver in Lake Qaban.
In the beginning of 1990s most of Central Kazan was covered by wooden buildings, usually consisting of two floors. There was a historical environment of Kazan citizens, but not the best place to live in. During the Republican programme "The liquidation of ramshackle apartments" most of them (unlike other Russian cities), especially in Central Kazan, where the land isn't cheap, were destroyed and their population was moved to new areas at the suburb of the city (Azino, Azino-2, Quartal 39). Nearly 100,000 citizens resettled by this programme.
Another significant building in central Kazan is the former "Smolentzev and Shmelev" tea house and hotel, now the Shalyapin Palace Hotel. It is located at 7/80 Universitetskaya Street, at the corner of Universitetskaya and Bauman. A major landmark of late-19th and early-20th century commercial architecture, it consists of two portions. The original portion, built for a merchant named Usmanov in the 1860s, was bought by the inter-related families of Efim Smolentzev and Pavel and Nikolai Shmelev in 1899.[12] They operated a store selling, among other things, tea. In 1910, the Smolentevs and Shmelevs constructed another portion, designed by architect Vasili Trifonov, and operated a hotel there.[13] After the Russian Revolution, the building eventually became the Hotel Soviet and after 2000 it was heavily renovated to reopen as the Shalyapin Palace Hotel.
Primary and secondary education system of Kazan includes:
There are also 49 music schools, 10 fine-arts schools and 43 sports schools.
There are 55 institutes of higher education in Kazan, including branches of universities from other cities. Most prominent of them are:
Kazan is one of the biggest scientific centres of Russia. City hosts:
Kazan is divided into seven districts:
No. | District | Population[15] | Area (km²) |
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1 | Aviastroitelny | 109,582 | 38.91 |
2 | Vakhitovsky | 93,083 | 25.82 |
3 | Kirovsky | 110,465 | 108.79 |
4 | Moskovsky | 132,400 | 38.81 |
5 | Novo-Savinovsky | 196,783 | 20.66 |
6 | Privolzhsky | 222,602 | 115.77 |
7 | Sovetsky | 240,374 | 76.87 |
Mayor is the head of the city. İlsur Metşin has been the mayor of Kazan since November 17, 2005
Kazan City Duma is a representative body of the city, elected every four years.
Executive committee is a municipal body of the executive organs. Committee's head is Rafis Burganov, since January 17, 2008.
Kazan hosts Tatarstan President's residence and administration (in Kremlin), Tatarstan's Cabinet of Ministers and Council of State (on Freedom square).
Kazan is one of the largest industrial and financial centres of Russia, and a leading city of the Volga economic region in construction and accumulated investment.[16] Total banking capital of Kazan banks is third in Russia.[17] The main industries of the city are: mechanical engineering, chemical, petrochemical, light and food industries. An innovative economy is represented by the largest IT-park in Russia which is one of the largest of its kind amongst Eastern Europe science parks.[18][19] Kazan ranks 174th (highest in Russia) in Mercer’s Worldwide Quality of Living Survey.[20]
Indicator | Value | Gross to 2007 |
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Total output volume, rub | 123,6 bln. | 107,4 % |
Employed, inh. | 565 000 | |
GRP, rub | 271,3 bln | 105 % |
Average income, rub | 17 300 [23] | 134 % |
Retailing turnover, rub | 211 bln | 120,5 % |
Investions, rub | 102 bln [24] | |
Expenditure, rub | 18,361 bln | |
Revenue, rub | 17,76 bln | |
Deficit, rub | 0,601 bln |
Several Top-500 Russian companies[25] are headquartered within city boundaries:
There are 151 large- and middle-scale enterprises in Kazan city, 98 of them are JSCs. Main industries are: machinery construction, chemicals and petrochemicals, light and food industries. Factory shipments in 2008 year total 94,8 bln rub.
Main enterprises of the city:
"Kazanorgsintez" JSC produces 38 % of Russian polyethylene. It also produces a large variety of petrochemical and chemical products.
Founded in 1788.
Produces "Mi" helicopters.
KAPO currently produces the Tu-214 passenger plane and the Tu-160 strategic bomber. There are also plans to start producing Tu-334 regional airliners and Tu-330 freighters.
Produces a large variety of cleaning agents
Is a proper of EFES group.
Largest banks of Kazan city are:
A unique combination of historic city and modern megalopolis attracts tourists to Kazan. 345,000 tourists visited Kazan in 2004, 550,000 in 2005 and 800,000 in 2007.[27] Kazan Kremlin attracts more than 200,000 tourists per year [28]. There are more than 40 hotels in the city, including:
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Year | Value |
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2000 | 541.8 |
2003 | 611.3 |
2004 | 874.7 |
2005 | 632.0 |
2006 | 729.6 |
2007 | 742.3 |
2008 | 901.5 [30] |
Kazan International Airport is located 26 kilometers from the city centre. It is a hub for Tatarstan Airlines and hosts 11 air companies. Airport is connected with city by bus route #97. There is also the Kazan Borisoglebskoye airfield, home to Kazan Aircraft Production Association, a major aircraft factory.
Kazan is connected with Moscow, Ulyanovsk, Yoshkar-Ola and Yekaterinburg by railways.
Main railway station "Kazan passazhirsky" is located in the city centre and includes main building (built in 1896), commuter trains terminal, ticket office building and some other technical buildings. Station serves 36 intercity trains and more than 8 million passengers per annum [31].
There is a second terminal in the northern part of city, it serves only one intercity train. Reconstruction of the Northern terminal has been frozen.
Kazan city has also 19 platforms for commuter trains
Station serves intercity ships and commuter boats. Pneumocushion boats are used in winter time. Daily passenger turnover reaches 6 thousands.
Bus station is situated in Devyataeva street. Bus routes connect Kazan with all districts of Tatarstan, Ufa, Sterlitamak, Samara, Tolyatti, Ulyanovsk, Baki, Aktobe.
There are highway connections to Samara, Orenburg, Ufa, Cheboksary, Naberezhnye Chelny (Yar Çallı), Almetyevsk (Älmät), Bugulma (Bögelmä), and Chistopol (Çístay).
There are five bridges across the Kazanka (Qazansu) river in the city, and one bridge connecting Kazan with the opposite bank of the Volga.
Men's teams:
Two consulates general are found in Kazan.[36]
Also, there is Italian Visa Center in Kazan.[37]
Kazan is twinned with:
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Kazan has an Alliance française centre.
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