The Manège

The Manège is a long brick building in the southern part of the Kazan Kremlin, built in the 1880s for the drill training of cadets. Today the former parade ground for mounted and foot drills has become one of the Kremlin’s cultural venues, hosting exhibitions and housing a research centre. The building is part of the Kazan Kremlin ensemble, recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The building’s design was drawn up in 1881 in St Petersburg, tailored specifically to the local terrain and the adjoining buildings of the Kazan Cadet School, of which the Manège became part. A spacious covered hall was needed so that cadets could practise drill regardless of the season or weather — Kazan winters made an open parade ground poorly suited to regular training. When the walls were built, the builders used material from the dismantled ruins of the nearby Trinity-Sergius Monastery: the foundation of its western enclosure wall went into the masonry of the Manège.

The building is set end-on to the exit from the fortress and stretches from west to east; it measures 56 metres in length and 18 metres in width, with a ridge height of about 10 metres. The façade is entirely covered with large horizontal rustication, the pilasters are complemented by applied pilaster strips, and the arched windows with profiled surrounds descend almost to the plinth. The entrance portal is emphasised by a projecting bay and crowned with a pediment merging into an attic storey, while a wrought-iron canopy on cast-iron posts is fixed above the door. Along the side walls, heating stoves once stood in niches, placed symmetrically on either side of the hall’s central axis.

From its construction until the Revolution of 1917, the Manège served almost without interruption for military purposes — here cadets of the Cadet School practised drill for the Kazan garrison. After the revolution, the building changed departmental affiliation along with the entire former school complex, but retained the original volume of its spacious covered hall, free of internal partitions.

In 1995, the Manège was included in the republican register of protected urban-planning monuments, and in 2003–2006 it was restored by a specialised Tatarstan restoration agency. In 2016–2019, the building, as part of the Kremlin ensemble, was included in the federal register of protected cultural monuments. Today it houses the Manège exhibition hall, a division of the Hermitage-Kazan Centre, as well as the Centre for the Written and Musical Heritage, a division of the republican academic institute that studies the Tatar language, literature and art.

From a parade ground for cadet drill to a venue for temporary exhibitions and a research centre — the Manège has followed a path typical of many Kremlin buildings: a shift from military to cultural purpose while preserving the historic appearance of its façades.