Location: Kazan, Sheynkman Str.
According to Russian chronicles, somewhere here the legendary eight-minarets Kul-Sharif mosque stood, the form of which evidently influenced the design of St. Basil’s cathedral in Moscow, which was erected in 1552 in honour of the capture of Kazan, a church of an unusual construction for Russian architecture. The exact site of the mosque, which has gone down in history under the name of its Imam Said Kul-Sharif who led the defense of this part of the city in 1552, remains undetermined to this day. However, the image of the mosque turned out to be very strong in the minds of the Tatar people. And after almost five centuries the decision was taken to erect a new mosque with that name on the grounds of the Kazan Kremlin, in the courtyard of the former cadet school.
