Kazan (Family Center)

The Kazan Family Center, which locals more often simply call ‘the Bowl,’ is the main wedding palace of Kazan and Tatarstan and one of the most photographed buildings the city has built in recent decades. The building plays on the name of the republic’s capital: it echoes the shape of a giant kazan — a cast cauldron set over an open fire below it. The structure stands on an almost circular artificial peninsula on the right bank of the Kazanka River, at the northern end of the Kremlin Embankment causeway.

Construction took place as part of Kazan’s preparations for the 2013 Summer Universiade and took only about five hundred days, with work running from 2010 to 2013. The author of the unusual design was Dashi Namdakov, a native of Buryatia and a well-known sculptor who had not previously worked on large-scale architectural projects. The grand opening took place on 5 July 2013, and the building almost immediately became one of the recognizable symbols of modern Kazan alongside the historic monuments of the Kremlin.

The five-story ‘kazan’ reaches a height of 32 meters, and the cauldron itself has a diameter of 20 meters; more than six thousand tons of glass and around five thousand tons of metal structures went into its cladding. The walls are decorated with stylized stainless-steel ornaments, and the structure is crowned with a gilded finial. In the evening it is lit up, with part of the illumination imitating the flames of a fire beneath the giant cauldron, heightening the building’s effect after dark.

Inside, three elevators carry visitors up to an observation deck near the top of the building. Each wedding registration hall is decorated differently: the interior of the ground floor evokes the era of Volga Bulgaria, while the décor of the third floor reproduces the style of the period of the Kazan Khanate. In 2016 another work by Namdakov was installed next to the center — the sculptural group ‘He and She,’ made up of pairs of zilants and leopards with their cubs, symbolizing the strength of family bonds.

Around ‘the Bowl’ there are lawns and pathways, and a landscaped embankment runs along the water — the site of festivities on Republic Day and City Day, as well as concerts and other public events. The observation deck is open to tourists separately from wedding ceremonies and offers a panorama of the Kazan Kremlin and the Kremlin Embankment.

Today the Family Center remains not only a working registry office, where Kazan couples come to marry, but also an obligatory stop on the city’s tourist routes. The building’s bold shape and its location on the bank of the Kazanka have made ‘the Bowl’ one of the most recognizable silhouettes of the modern embankment, on a par with the Syuyumbike Tower and the walls of the Kremlin on the opposite bank.