Kazan is the city with 1,000 year history and ancient traditions, liveable city of active and responsible citizens with the open local authority and safe environment.
Kazan represents a multicultural and multi-religious megapolis. With a population of over 1,2 million people it is the sixth most populous city in Russia. The representatives of 115 nationalities live here. There are 117 cultural objects in the city.
Kazan has a unique cultural code. There are over 1000 objects of the cultural diversity on a map of the city. Kazan as the candidate of the right of being a creative city concentrats on the potential of culture and creativity as a driver of social integration and unity, focusing on the music as the centre of the cultural identity and development of the city.
Kazan is one of the centres of culture and art in eastern Russia. Plenty of artists and intellectuals were born here. They wrote their names into history of the world music. They are a great singer Fedor Shalyapin, the talented composers Mily Balakirev, Sophia Gubaidulina, Salikh Saydashev, Farid Yarullin, a jazz musician Oleg Lundstrem, a pianist Mikhail Pletnev, the opera divas Albina Shagimuratova and Aida Garifullina.
The new cultural places are constantly emerging in Kazan, for example, the residence of creative industries “Shtab”, the centre of modern art “Smena”, creative laboratory “Ugol”, the Centre of Contemporary Music named after Sofia Gubaidulina.
The older generation are also involved in the creative activity. More than 10 thousand citizens participate in the Kazan project “Zhiznelyub”.
52 parks and squares are the places for the organisation of musical festivals and concerts. Annually over 700 various events, film performances and handcraft fairs are held in Kazan.
Charity events are an important part of cultural life of Kazan. The All-Russian Cultural and Charitable Festival of Children's Creativity “Good Wave” for gifted children is one of the largest projects of the charity events.
The Kazan Chamber Orchestra “La Primavera” holds the charity concerts, as well as realises such projects, as “Classics online”, “Melodies from mobile telephone” for students, the concerts in Kazan hospice, Republican Children's Clinical Hospital, and orphanages “To hear ”Thank you“, and an educational project ”Stars from Tomorrow" for musical schools.
Totally more than 40 socially significant cultural projects together with non-profit organisations were realised in 2018 and 120 events were held in Kazan.
Kazan attaches great importance to the preservation of cultural identity. For example, the Kazan Philharmonic Society is concentrated on the cultural preservation of nations, nationalities and people, living in the city.
Since 2014, the ethnocultural festival “Our home is Tatarstan” is held in Kazan which acquaints with culture of peoples, living in the republic.
Since 2016, the festival of Tatar pop music “Wind of change" takes place in the city. The main reason of the project is promoting Tatar music in Russia and abroad. The actors from the other cities of Russia, Italy and USA participate in the festival.
In 2018, the festival of new Tatar culture TAT CULT FEST was held for the first time in Kazan. Its key objective is to form a cultural community, uniting the most interesting events in Tatar music, theatre, design, cinema, and art in the past year. The event is related to the Kazan City Day which is celebrated on August 30.
Kazan now is one of the most developed cities in Russia in terms of sport and culture. The World Summer Universiade 2013, the Aquatics Championship FINA 2015, 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, the 2018 FIFA World Cup became "Golden Pages" of Kazan history. In August of 2019, the city will hold WorldSkills Kazan 2019, the world championships of vocational skills.
The cultural life of Tatarstan capital city is full of huge number of musical forums at international level, among which are the International Opera Festival named after Fyodor Shalyapin, the International Festival of Classical Ballet named after Rudolf Nuriev, the festival of modern music “Europe-Asia”, The S.Rachmaninov’s Festival “White Lilac”, the festival of modern music named after Sofia Gubaidullina “Concordia”, the open-air festival “Golden autumn”, “L'arte de larco”, as well as the festival “Delicious Kazan”, the literary festival “Aksenov-Fest”, book festivals of the CCC “Smena”, and the International Festival of Muslim Cinema.
In Kazan 9 theatres, 34 state museums, private galleries, Grand State Concert Hall named after S.Saidashev, and 2 philarmonic societies are open for visitors. The State Symphony Orchestra of Kazan and the Kazan Chamber Orchestra “La Primavera” are famous far beyond Kazan. 17 municipal establishments for culture and leisure, 392 clubs, as well as 50 children's arts schools, the Kazan State Conservatory and a musical college provide an opportunity for creative development.
At present about 20 creative industries and non-profit organisations carry out their activities on the field of culture. 771 legal people and 336 businessmen carrying out their activities in the field of culture are registered in the city.
In 2016, updating of the city culture establishments began in Kazan - the first reconstructed and renovated buildings were the CLC named after V.Lenin and the Cultural Center “Moskovsky”. A major reconstruction of palaces of culture in Kazan allows not only to put the establishment buildings in order, but also to develop new directions of their activity.
A social project “Zhiznelyub” has a special place in cultural life of Kazan which enables older people to engage in a creative activity in the palaces of culture, libraries and city parks for free. The most widespread directions among pensioners are the mobile educational program, dance, vocal, and healthy lifestyle lessons.
Museum heritage is the most highly funded in Kazan. The museum complex of the National Cultural Centre “Kazan” includes the Museum of National Culture, the 1000-anniversary Museum of Kazan, the Art gallery of Konstantin Vasiliev, the Museum of Baqi Urmançe, the Museum of Amir Mazitov, the Gallery-studio of Ildar Zaripov, the Memorial “Memory book”, Vassily Aksenov's House-Museum. The collections of the National Museum has 50,5 thousand items.
