The National Library of Tatarstan moved in 2021 to the former Lenin Memorial Centre — a striking late-Soviet white-marble pyramid on Pushkin Street that had been designed in the early 1980s to commemorate Lenin's brief student years in Kazan. The conversion turned a memorial nobody quite knew what to do with into the country's most impressive regional library.
The exterior is the main attraction unless you are using the library: the white pyramid with its angular cut-outs is striking, especially at dusk when it is lit. Visitors can enter the lobby and use the cafe; reading rooms require registration.