Kazan's sightseeing centres on the Kremlin — the white-walled UNESCO citadel above the Kazanka river — and the streets that fall away from it. Inside the Kremlin walls, the Kul Sharif Mosque and the Annunciation Cathedral face each other across a square, an unusually direct expression of the city's twin Tatar–Russian identity. The leaning Söyembikä Tower sits beside them, the surviving fragment of the Khanate's palace.
Below the Kremlin the long pedestrian sweep of Bauman Street runs through the city centre, lined with 19th-century merchant houses, cafes, and the bell tower of the Epiphany Cathedral. The Old Tatar Quarter on the far side of the Bolaq canal is the older, lower part of the city — small mosques, wooden houses, and the best Tatar food. Beyond the centre, the Temple of All Religions in Aksay is the wildest of Kazan's attractions: a one-man architectural experiment that combines mosque, church, synagogue, pagoda, and chapel in a single building.