Trading Rows

The Trading Rows on Profsoyuznaya Street are part of the historic “Bread Bazaar” complex, which took shape in Kazan at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries and has preserved to this day an example of provincial commercial architecture from the reign of Catherine the Great. Today the ensemble is protected as a cultural heritage site of local significance.

The Rows were built in 1796 to a design by provincial architect Vasily Kaftyrev — the same architect who drew up Kazan’s first regular town plan, “most graciously confirmed” by Catherine II on 17 March 1768 pursuant to a decree of 25 July 1763. The new trading buildings were erected on the site of Kazan’s former grain market, where grain and flour had been sold retail for centuries — hence the complex’s name, which has survived to this day. Besides the Rows themselves, the ensemble includes a trading pavilion from 1796 and a residential house from the second half of the 19th century; the complex’s buildings present façades onto several neighbouring properties along the street.

Like most trading rows of the Catherine the Great era, the building is an elongated, single-storey structure divided into separate shop units joined by a common arcaded gallery along the street; neighbouring sections share party end walls. This layout allowed shop owners to trade under a single roof, while owners could sometimes fit out living quarters above the shops. The façades’ modest Classicist decoration — rusticated piers, semicircular windows with profiled surrounds — is characteristic specifically of Kaftyrev’s buildings.

The street on which the Rows stand was formed from two older Kazan streets — Predtechenskaya and Malaya Prolomnaya — which were merged into Profsoyuznaya Street only in 1929; according to one version, the name is linked to the fact that one of Kazan’s first trade unions, that of pharmacists, was located here, while before the revolution both streets were part of the trading and artisan quarter beside the Kremlin. The Trading Rows themselves have continued to serve their original function for almost two and a half centuries, remaining a place of retail trade right in the city centre.

Today the premises of the former grain market house shops, cafés, and restaurants, while the historic arcades and the brick decoration of the façades remain virtually untouched. The complex’s neighbouring buildings — the trading pavilion and the old residential house — together with the Rows form a cohesive historic setting on one of Kazan’s oldest trading streets.

The Trading Rows on Profsoyuznaya Street are a vivid example of how urban commercial architecture from the age of Catherine the Great can outlive the passing of eras and remain a living part of the city’s everyday life: a place where grain was traded two and a half centuries ago is still open to shoppers and visitors today.