Millennium Square

Millennium Square is the largest and best-known square in Kazan, spread across the historic center of the city by the walls of the Kremlin. The panorama with the Kremlin, the minarets of the Kul Sharif Mosque, and the flying-saucer-like circus building, visible from here in full view, has long been the city’s signature postcard image.

During the military clashes between Moscow and the Kazan Khanate, it was on this field in front of the fortress that siege camps were set up, and later the Tashayak marketplace sprang up here, with fairs and street entertainment — the square was known by that name until the early 21st century. It acquired its present boundaries and appearance in 1999–2002, when, by decision of the city authorities, parts of Novo-Kremlyovskaya and Bauman streets were incorporated into it, with dilapidated, low-value buildings demolished at the start of the latter. The square has borne its current name since 2005, given in honor of Kazan’s millennium anniversary, for which the “Kremlyovskaya” metro station and a separate underground crossing were also built here.

The square’s main axis stretches from northwest to southeast for almost five hundred meters, with a width of about one hundred thirty meters, and its total area reaches ninety thousand square meters — making it one of the largest city squares in the country. A gently sloping field with lawns and footpaths adjoins a wide roadway here, leading from the Kremlin dam across the Kazanka River to the start of the Bulak channel, while a round fountain depicting the Zilant (a dragon-like creature) and a multifaceted metal installation symbolizing peace stand in the center of the pedestrian zone. Ahead of the 2013 Summer Universiade, the section of the square by the dam was rebuilt into a multilevel traffic interchange.

For the city’s millennium in 2005, a multi-tiered stage shaped like the Cap of Monomakh rose in front of the stadium, an air show flew over the square, and the evening ended with a laser light show and a thousand-salvo fireworks display — celebrations on such a scale the square had never seen before or since. Today it hosts annual festivities and parades for Republic Day and Victory Day, music festivals, and in winter a forty-meter city Christmas tree is set up in front of the stadium.

Besides holidays, the square hosts rallies, marathon starts, traveling circus tours, and even exhibition races of racing cars, sometimes drawing several hundred thousand people at once. Around its perimeter stand the southern wall of the Kremlin with several towers, the State Circus building, the Pyramid complex, and the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, and the square is connected to the rest of the city via the Kremlyovskaya metro station.

Having emerged on the site of a medieval marketplace by the walls of the besieged fortress, Millennium Square has become the main public space of modern Kazan — a point where the Kremlin, transportation, and city festivities all converge.