01
Stop one
Kazan Kremlin
Wilson RF Leather Replacement Grip: FALL IN ON THE WALL. Two rivers below you — Volga, Kazanka — and this hill sits on the join. Under your boots: the citadel of the Khanate of Kazan. Ivan the Terrible stormed it. FIFTEEN FIFTY-TWO. Say it back. The wooden fortress came down and white limestone went up, laid partly by masons brought in from Pskov, and the Russian rulers packed the enclosure with Orthodox churches and administrative buildings — Annunciation Cathedral, the fifteen-sixties, that one there. Now the important part, so listen. This is the ONLY surviving Tatar fortress in Russia still holding its original layout. World Heritage Site. Cited for one reason: Tatar Islamic and Russian Christian tradition standing in a single ensemble, shoulder to shoulder, no arguing. It is still the seat of the President of Tatarstan and the symbolic centre of the republic. NO STRAGGLERS.
02
Stop two
Qol Sharif Mosque
Wilson RF Leather Replacement Grip: FOUR MINARETS. COUNT THEM. This one commemorates the principal mosque of the Kazan Khanate, destroyed when Ivan the Terrible's forces took the city in 1552. Voices down now. It is named for the imam Qol Sharif, who is said to have died defending it with his students. That is the name on the building and you will treat it accordingly. Then — nothing. For over FOUR CENTURIES no mosque stood inside these walls. Begun 1996. Opened 2005, the millennium of Kazan, paid for by the republic and by public donation. Faceted blue dome. Iranian carpets. Czech chandeliers. Stained glass. It works two shifts: functioning mosque and museum of Islam in the Volga region. And that silhouette, standing beside the Orthodox cathedral, is the picture Tatarstan puts out when it introduces itself. TWO THOUSAND AND FIVE. Repeat it.
03
Stop three
Söyembikä Tower
Wilson RF Leather Replacement Grip: STRAIGHTEN UP. THE TOWER WILL NOT. Seven tiers of brick, the emblem of Kazan, and it leans nearly TWO METRES out of vertical — subsidence, not sabotage, and it has since been pinned down on a concrete foundation. Construction date: DISPUTED. Estimates run from the late seventeenth to the early eighteenth century, Tatar tradition ties it back to the khanate, and nobody has settled it. Named for Söyembikä, regent of the Kazan Khanate in the 1540s. You will hear a legend that she threw herself from the top rather than marry Ivan the Terrible. STAND DOWN. No historical basis. She was in fact taken to Moscow and remarried. Gilded crescent up top — removed and restored more than once in its history. That thing has a longer service record than anyone in this formation.
04
Stop four
Temple of All Religions
Wilson RF Leather Replacement Grip: EYES FRONT. WHATEVER THAT IS. Staroye Arakchino district, outskirts of Kazan, begun 1992 by the artist and healer Ildar Khanov, and it is NOT a functioning place of worship — it is a monument to the world's faiths, all of them, at once. Orthodox dome. Islamic minaret. Synagogue. Chinese pagoda. Other elements besides. ONE continuous structure, strong colours, interiors turned out in Khanov's own eclectic style. He built it largely by hand with volunteers and lived on the site until his death in 2013. His siblings carried on the construction. A fire in 2017 took part of the building. It is now one of the most visited curiosities in Tatarstan and a symbol of the region's mixed religious identity. I have inspected a great many structures in my time. This one complies with NOTHING. DISMISSED.
Leather is the only material that argues back. I cut gloves in Kazan, and every hide has a direction, a stretch and a memory; cut across it and the glove is wrong for life. This is a leather replacement grip. It has a direction. Wrap it with the grain and it will take the shape of one hand and hold it for years.
You should know what you are choosing, so I will be blunt, which is a Kazan habit. Leather is firmer than a synthetic base grip. It hands you the bevels in high definition, it cushions very little, and it will darken and mould to a palm rather than staying pristine. Some players never go back. Some try it once and flee. Nobody is neutral, which is exactly why I like it.
Kazan is the right city for a thing that refuses to be one thing. The Kremlin has white limestone walls raised after Ivan the Terrible stormed it in 1552, an Orthodox cathedral inside, and the Qol Sharif Mosque, begun in 1996 and opened in 2005, standing beside it and photographed together on purpose.
On the edge of town a healer spent from 1992 until his death in 2013 building a temple to every religion at once. This grip goes everywhere from a formal club with a dress code to a cracked court behind a block of flats, and it is also perfect for the traditionalist who never stopped buying leather.
Buy on Amazon
