The Old Tatar Quarter — known as Staro-Tatarskaya Sloboda — is the lower-town district on the far side of the Bolaq canal where Tatars were resettled after the Russian conquest. Today it is the best-preserved Tatar neighbourhood in the city: narrow streets of 19th-century wooden and stone houses painted in turquoise, red, and ochre, several small mosques tucked among them, and the city's best Tatar cooking in family-run restaurants.
The Mardjani Mosque, the first stone mosque built in Kazan after the Russian conquest, sits at the heart of the quarter. Lake Kaban runs along the eastern edge with a pleasant lake-side path. The whole neighbourhood is small enough to wander on foot in an hour or two.