City Hall

The post of mayor was established by Empress Catherine II in 1766. The mayor was elected every three years, and he was responsible for life and wellbeing of the city and its residents. In addition to City Governors, the City Council was also elected. The building of the City Council is now occupied by the municipal administration of Kazan. In 1766, a merchant of the First Guild and an heir to the woolen business and the House of Mikhlyaev -Ivan F. Dryablov - became the first Mayor of Kazan.  Ivan F. Dryablov was very good at his job. Empress Catherine II, who visited Kazan in May of 1767, highly praised the city and wrote in her diary: "The city is with no doubt the first in Russia after Moscow”. Incidentally, Empress Catherine II stayed at the House of Dryablov during her visit to Kazan.  Back then, the mayor did not have his residence yet, and the current City Hall building was constructed much later.

In 1785, Catherine II issued the City Patent of Nobility, which ordered for city administrations to be governed by the City Council consisting of a mayor and six members of the Council. Even though this historic document was published in the 18th century, the residence of the City Council was only built in 1836.

The architect of the building is unknown, but it is known for sure that it was not built for the City Council. The three-storey house of the current City Hall was built to order of a merchant of the First Guild, Vasily Evreinov, eminent merchant of Kazan and the Manager of Russia's largest 18th-19th century Makarievskaya Fair. In 1833, Evreinov’s house suffered a fire incident. The merchant decided against rebuilding the house and handed it over to the City Treasury, which sold it for very little money for government jobs. 

After another fire in 1842, the building underwent major restructuring. The work was completed in 1846 by the Danish architect Christian Crump, who endowed the City Council with a little bit of a fanciful Baroque style. Crump added a balcony on metal brackets above the main entrance and updated the interiors. At the end of the 19th century, the balcony above the entrance was replaced with a portico that emphasized the main entrance from the Kremlin Street.

In the 1860s, the building also housed, apart from the City Council and the Administration, the Bank and the Municipal Library. Today, the building is home to the City Hall of Kazan and the Kazan City Council of People's Deputies.

Interesting candidates were put forward for the post of mayor: apart from merchants, mayors of the City of Kazan were represented by people of noble descent, professors of Kazan University, lawyers and even veterinarians. Some candidates were elected mayors a few times, since they coped so well with their city development responsibilities. This tradition continues even today - each of the subsequent mayors of Kazan stays in their position longer than their predecessor, dedicating more and more time to the improvement of the city.

It is from here, from the House Number 1, that you can begin the tour of one of the most beautiful streets in Kazan - the Kremlin Street.