end of the eighteenth century did classicism come to Kazan, aided by a 1765fire
that opened opportunity for Catherinian urban planning. In the next several
decades the city was redesigned; neoclassical buildings sprang up, including public
offices (1770s), the city hospital, and the trade arcade (Gostinnyi Dvor1800).
Although since the 1990s a magnificent mosque has joined the ensemble of
Russian architecture in the Kazan Kremlin and many others have been built around
the city, historically Kazan’s Tatar population struggled to maintain a visual
presence. Tatars were moved out of the fortress center outside of town or at least
across the Bulak River; through the seventeenth century they were forbidden to
construct mosques (although some modest wooden structures slipped by). Most of
the central city was given over to Russian settlement; in their unusual northeast
orientation a few Orthodox churches of the time show evidence of having been
built on the remains of mosques. By the eighteenth century four dense Tatar
neighborhoods had developed and under Catherine II restrictions on mosque
construction were eased. About ten new mosques are attested, of which the
surviving stone ones—the Apanaevskii (1768–71) and Mardzhani (1766–70)—
exhibit restrained, undecorative baroque style.
As in Kazan, in Siberia Russian architectural styles lagged behind the capitals. As
the seat of the Siberian eparchy whose bishops were primarily Ukrainian, Tobolsk
Figure 13.7One of two Moscow suburban estates of the Sheremetev family, Kuskovo,
built in the 1760s, demonstrates the wealthy nobility’s penchant for creating fanciful
worlds on their estates, with gardens, statuary, orangeries, grottos, and artificial lake.
Photo: Jack Kollmann.
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