After 9 days of fun in Saint Petersburg and Moscow it was time to jump on a train to the east. I followed an advice of a local in SPB and chose the train to Kazan. Its the southern branch of the trainsibirian train leaving Moscow.
And thats how such a train from the front looks like. Massive locomotives pulling the 10 to 15 wagons from Moscow all the way to Peking or Vladivostok. And if something is broken the driver will fix it with the suitable tool. This time it was a junction plate.
It was just a 13hour ride to Kazan unfortunately I was not really able to talk to my two compartment fellows. Although, at the time we were approaching the city there were pointing at certain objects. One of them was the Kremlin of Kazan which is quite special. Inside of it is not just an Orthodox church but also a Mosque since the region and this city are the home of the Tatar people.
Since the place has quite a different culture it is a popular city to go for holidays. It shall be the the third best place for living standard inside of Russia. The whole center must have been renovated recently. One of the places I enjoyed most was the square / park in front of the palace of agriculture. Based between the river and the entrance to the palace with its huge tree covering the main hall.
A bit out of the center on the other site of the river a temple of all religions can be found. Not opened yet but you can get the first impression of the weird combination. Buddhism, Islam, Christian as well as orthodox and perhaps some others I didn’t recognised are represented.
Kazan its a nice place for a stopover of one or two nights. Depending on how active you are and what you would like to do. Its easy to get a train back to Moscow or further to Ekaterinburg the capital of the Ural region.