Kazan

Kazan

Arrived late in the afternoon and set off straight away from a city tour, first by bus around some of the sights to view them from the comfort of the bus and then a walk around the kremlin.

The passenger terminal at the river port.

One of the many towers of the kremlin.

The main gate into the kremlin.

The only remaining building of the monastery that used to be here.

One of the entrances into the kremlin seen from the inside.

The mosque, not the original but a modern replacement. The Khanate of Kazan was a muslin state ruled by descendants of the Mongols and Genghis Khan until Ivan the Terrible invaded and captured it and added it to the empire.

The main prayer room.

The ceiling.

The huge chandelier.

The Wedding Tower of seven stories and the foundations have sunk so it is nearly two metres out of true.

The gateway at the bottom of the tower.

The cathedral, the original is the building with the domes and the extension is the section in front with the five arches at roof level. We could take pictures inside if there wasn't a service but unfortunately we could enter and view but not take any photos are a service was in progress.

The presidents palace although it is only used for functions and his official offices are elsewhere.

Another cathedral seen from the kremlin and a section of defensive wall towards the bottom left hand corner.

A view of the wall.

The church next to the tower that forms part of the presidents palace.

A ferris wheel viewed from the kremlin across the Volga.

Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga

We had been delayed at the locks so we were ate arriving in Nighy Novgorod, meaning Lower New City to distinguish it from another city named Novgorod. There was some other river traffic such as this aggregate barge which we had to let it go by before mooring on the bank beside it.

 A view of a cathedral looking up river.

A view of the kremlin from the river.

A detail of one of the tower and the river gate to the left.

The Chkalov Steps, named after a test pilot who flew his last test when he crashed his plane on landing. There are 442 steps to connect the river port to the main square high above the river...but there were coaches waiting to take us to the kremlin. 

                                      

 Another cruise ship, the Alexander Pushkin with whom we had shared a lock earlier in the day.

 The Church of the Nativity, a beautiful church built bt the Stroganoff family.

A detail of one of the windows.

A detail of the dome.

 The separate bell tower.

The inside of the church.

 The icon wall.

The kremlin, the main gate from the inside.

The city's symbol and coat of arms  on top of the tower.

The battlements from the inside, which encloses an area similar in size to the Kremlin inMoscow with walls two kilometres long. There is also a collection of military hardware which was built in the city, and of course an iconic T-34.

 An aircraft...I forget which make but I won't even guess and if I get it wrong I will be inundated with emails correcting my mistake.

A conning tower of a submarine which was also made in the city.

 A katyuska rocket firing lorry, nicknamed Stalin's Organ by the Germans.

 A heavy artillery assault tank.

 The municipal offices within the kremlin grounds.

 The caesural inside the kremlin grounds.

An eternal flame to remember the fallen.

 One of the thirteen towers that surrounds the grounds.

 A view of the river gate from the inside of the kremlin.

Zavolzhye locks

Zavolzhye locks on the Volga

These are the first of several large locks on the Volga since leaving Moscow several days ago. There is a big dam upstream of Nighy Novgorod and the locks allow shipping to navigate downstream. The ship enters aa area protected by breakwaters.

A distant view of the locks.

The entrance to the locks.

The upstream lock gate rises from it housing below water.

When on place, the water is let out.

Looking upstream the sill of the upstream lock is seen as the water flows out.

And the downstream gates are opened...

...waiting patiently...

...and the first boat into the lock moves out into the next basin.

Just to repeat the process at the next set of locks...this rime we are the third ship allowed into the lock.