History Of Kazan

In the 8th - 9th centuries, the tribes of ancient Bolgars, ancestors of the modern Tatars, began to populate the Volga region. The first state - the Volga-Kama Bolgaria - was set up at the end of the 9th - beginning of the 10th centuries which was the first feudal state in the north-eastern Europe. In 922, Islam was established as a state religion. The Bolgar mosques and medreces (Muslim clerical schools) spread knowledge and culture in the neighbouring regions.

In the 13th century, the territory of the Volga-Kama Bolgaria was annexed to the Empire of Chenghiz-Khan and then became a part of powerful Zolotaya Orda (Golden Hord) State. Ulus Jochi, as contemporaries called the Golden Horde, comprised within its boundaries the steppe expanses of eastern Europe as far as the Danube, and also a great part of the western Siberian steppe and Kazakstan. These areas were called the Desht-i-Kipchak or Kipchak steppe. In addition the Ulus Jochi included a range of settled districts with old centres of trade and industry: the nothern Caucasus, the Crimea, Moldavia, Volga Bolgaria, the Mordvin lands and Khorezm. Rus stood in a position of dependence upon the Horde.

The greatest flourishing of the Golden Horde and its cities falls to the time of the reign of the khans Uzbek (1312-1342) and Janibek (1342-1357). In 1312 Islam was accepted in the Golden Horde as state religion.

In the second half of the 14th century, during continuous internecine and external wars, the Golden Horde cities came in deep decline. The final blow to the cities of the lower Volga was delivered by the invasion of Timur and his forces in 1395 and 1396. But the Golden Horde and some its cities existed till 1420's, when state started to decay on Kazan, Astrakhan, Crimea, Siberia khanates, Nogai and Big hordes.
Middle Volga region in the Golden Horde period, as well as in the previous period, was occupied mainly by Volga bolgars (conquered by Mongols during campaigns of 1223-1236). Mostly known archaeological sites of the Volga Bolgaria of the Golden Horde period are Bolgar and Djuketau sites of ancient cities, Kazan Kremlin, Urmat, Sukhorechenka and III Biliarsk settlements. All architectural monuments of Bolgar site of ancient city saved to the present time, concern to period of existence of the Golden Horde. In the second half of 13th century in the Volga Bolgaria appeared the tradition of mounting above some burials stone grave monuments with inscriptions on Arabian graphics.

In 1552, the city was conquered by Russia under Ivan the Terrible and the majority of the population was massacred.

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 shipbuilding base for the Caspian fleet.

In the beginning of 19th century Kazan State University and Printing Press were founded by Alexander I. The Qur'an was firstly printed in Kazan in 1801, and it became an important centre for Oriental Studies in Russia. By the end of the 19th century, Kazan had become an industrial center of the Middle Volga.

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 1919 (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 were evacuated to Kazan, and the city subsequently became a center of the military industry, producing tanks and planes.

On 30th August, 1990, the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Republic was adopted and signed. The new Constitution of the Republic of Tatarstan established a new state status of the Republic.

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. A single-line metro opened on 27 August 2005. The Kazan Metro has five stations. But there are plans to extend the line in both directions. Kazan celebrated its millennium in 2005, when the largest mosque in Russia, Qol Sharif, was inaugurated in the Kremlin, and the holiest copy of Our Lady of Kazan was returned to the city. The date of "millennium", however, was fixed rather arbitrarily.