Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/292

286 "The summer road between Kazan and Nijni is on the south bank of the river; the winter road is on the ice, and is marked with green boughs placed in a double row, so that the road cannot be missed. These boughs are placed by the Administration of Roads, and no one can travel on the ice of the river until it has been officially declared safe. The south bank

is quite abrupt, while on the north the country frequently stretches off in a level for a long distance. Most of the towns along the banks are said to have been founded by John the Terrible in his expedition for the capture of Kazan.

"We reached Kazan as promised soon after noon, and had the rest of the day for seeing the place. We were all ready when the boat touched the shore, and were off as soon as we secured a carriage. The city is about five miles from the river, but we found the drive to it not at all uninteresting. We passed through a suburb where a mosque and a church standing close together symbolized the friendly relations between the Russian and Tartar inhabitants.

"Kazan is a handsome city with about sixty thousand inhabitants, of whom one-third are Tartars. We drove through the Tartar quarter and found it very much like the Russian, with the exception of the people in the streets and the signs on the shops. The buildings have the same general appearance, and were probably built by Russian architects. John the Terrible destroyed a large part of the city soon after its capture. He