Kazan, August 29th 2004

We did it !

After 46 hours in the car and exctly 2.838 km we arrived this evening in Kazan, the old Tartar capital in th center of Russia. We just had the time to visit the beautiful churches and buildings in the Kremlin, the old fortress, during an hour or so of the sunset. Most impressive was a tower, built by Iwan the Horrible (?) in the first half of the 16 th century in only one week, to get a Tartar beauty into his bed. But the princess just jumped down from the top – which was quite successful, for the tower was declining like the Pisa tower, a fashion of that time? – and not into Iwans pillows.

Dinner was in a turkish restaurant, named Antalya, which is said to be the best in town, this seems to be true. The Tartar owner had studied “Religion” in Konya and Istanbul, which gave him all tools to make business…   

GA (Gerd Albrecht)