Kul Sharif Mosque

The Kul Sharif Mosque is the largest mosque in European Russia and the symbol of Tatarstan's revived Tatar Muslim identity. Completed in 2005 to mark the millennium of Kazan, it replaces the original Kul Sharif destroyed by Ivan the Terrible in 1552. Eight blue minarets surround a white-marble central hall that rises under a vast turquoise dome.

The interior is open to non-Muslim visitors outside prayer times. Women are required to cover their heads (scarves are lent at the entrance); shoes come off at the door. There is a small museum on the lower level covering Tatar Islamic history and the Quran in Tatar translation. The mosque sits in the western half of the Kremlin grounds, directly opposite the Annunciation Cathedral.

things to do sight mosque kremlin district architecture
A story
The original Kul Sharif was destroyed by Ivan the Terrible's troops in 1552, and its imam — the scholar Kul Sharif himself, who gave the mosque its name — was killed defending the citadel. The rebuilt mosque, opened on the 1000th anniversary of the city in 2005, was paid for partly by ordinary Tatars sending donations through banks across Russia, and partly by Saudi backers, an unusual coalition that says something about Kazan's place in the contemporary Islamic world.

Other places in Things to Do