Palace Square (Kazan)

Brief information

Palace Square appeared on a site that in the 16th century was called the “Foul Swamp,” and by the beginning of the 21st century was occupied by neglected green plantings and the remains of old buildings of little value. Its present appearance therefore reads as a sharp replacement of the former peripheral fabric: instead of scattered houses and a vacant lot, an open urban square was laid out here by the northern wall of the Kazan Kremlin.

The square’s shape is not ceremonially symmetrical, but an oblique quadrilateral. Its edges are defined by objects of different character: the Farmers’ Palace to the south, the Kazanka Kremlin Embankment to the north, Baturin Street to the west, and a residential complex on the side of the “oil workers’ settlement” to the east. Because of this, the square is important not only in itself: it links an administrative building, the embankment, housing, and views of the Kremlin into one modern urban node.

What to notice right away

It is worth comparing the square’s boundaries. The southern side is held by the massive Farmers’ Palace, the northern side by the Kazanka embankment on the crest of the flood-protection dam, and between them lies an open space with a central circular platform. The oblique quadrilateral shape helps show that this is not an old regular square, but a site reassembled between already established lines of the street, the embankment, and new development.

Inside the square, what matters is not the individual decorations but their combination: alleys with decorative paving slabs, openwork benches, lanterns, flower beds, grassy areas, large green plantings, and an artificial pond. From the embankment side, stairways with decorative stone descend to the square, and between them is a long three-tier restaurant and shopping gallery. These details show how the place was made simultaneously into a square in front of a large building, a walking area, and a link with the embankment.