"The city that crumbles around you" Kazan' by RB_Oakes

After the strangeness of Cheboksary, I wanted to get out of there and keep a low profile doing it. I headed for the train station. However, getting a ticket proved a royal pain. I had to change trains at Kanash, which was fine. For me, that is. The lady at the ticket window was less convinced. To this day, I don’t know what the hell her problem was, but she flat-out refused to sell me a ticket. Given that the train didn’t leave for three hours and the stopover was going to be a while as well, I figured it was a sign from above that I should probably just go to the bus station.

The Russians have made a concerted effort in recent years to spruce up the railways. With the exception of the dilapidated station in Vyborg, all of the stations I saw were immaculately clean and among the most opulent buildings in town. While not on a par with the brand-new airport-like facilities I passed through in St. Petersburg and Samara nor the insanely luxurious Kazan Station in Moscow, the Cheboksary station was pretty, with marble and polished brass everywhere. And it seemed even in the most obsolete small towns the train station was a damn spiffy building.

Bus stations, on the other hand, have not been subject to upgrade. Cheboksary’s wasn’t so bad, though, and I got on a half-empty minibus for Kazan’. It was a most illuminating ride. Our first stop was the industrial city of Novocheboksarsk. It was bleak – a concrete sea unbroken by even a tree or patch of grass. Babushkas and bored kids shuffled around the station aimlessly. Russia has some great cities, but also some truly hideous industrial hells.

After Novocheboksarsk we headed into the countryside. Fields turned to forest as we exited Chuvashia and entered Tatarstan. We cruised through fairly wealthy small towns – the factories were working and storefronts freshly-painted. The bus emptied out and I stretched out. It was actually a very cool ride, seeing small town Russian life, away from the almighty railway.

The Kazan’ bus station is a decrepit horrorshow. Broken glass, blown light bulbs and an obsolete timetable were the main features of the waiting room. I tried to secure an onward ticket to Samara but was duly thwarted. Having already endured Soviet-style service once that day, I moved on.

Kazan’ itself has a few things going for it. It’s pretty run-down but the Tatar people lend it an almost Asiatic flair. This was most in evidence in the Central Market which had a lot of similarities to the bazaars I would see later in Central Asia. However, much of Kazan’ consists of tenements in various states of disrepair. Only the areas around ul. Baumana and the Kremlin are remotely nice. The rest is best left for shock tourists. I enjoyed the local brewpub, the Joker, and spent a lot of time trying all the local beer brands. There wasn’t a whole lot else to do and since there was no Saturday train to Samara I had to spend an extra day in Kazan’.

• Pros:Hints of Asia, pretty Kremlin, lively shopping street
• Cons:A little run-down, overpriced, hardly anywhere to eat
• In a nutshell:Give it a day and move on. Both Cheboksary and Samara are nicer