(Source: http://www.kazan.aif.ru/society)

 Chistopol is a neat little town on the banks of the Kama River preserving the atmosphere of a cozy merchant province founded a hundred and fifty years ago. All the attractions are located on two main streets paved with stones, all low houses are renovated and their appearance is pleasant to the eye, and the whole town with the area of 20 square kilometers is perceived as a walking zone.

The brightest objects of this zone either belonged to the venerable merchants of Chistopol or were built on their money. First of all, the Empire-style Cathedral of St. Nicholas is a true pearl of the town’s architecture rising on the bank of the Kama River. The five-domed white-stone cathedral was designed by the architect Pyotr Pyatnitsky and erected in 1838 at the expense of Polyakovs merchants.

Not far from the St. Nicholas Cathedral, on the same Karla Marksa Street, you can see another architectural landmark of Chistopol - the house of the merchant Melnikov. This is a charming Art Nouveau mansion with a turret and fancy moldings, which is now occupied by an art salon and the town children’s library.

The former tea shop of the merchant Maklakov elates you with its desperately pink color. The first public park of Chistopol - Skaryatinsky City Garden – is located nearby. It also appeared thanks to merchants who supported the “urban” idea of the Kazan Governor Nikolai Skaryatin and invested in the improvement of the former selling space.

In modern Chistopol, just like everywhere else in Tatarstan, Islam peacefully co-exists with Orthodoxy and other religions.

The city has interesting Islamic monuments. The blue mosque of Iman, one of the largest mosques in Tatarstan, echoes with the blue domes of the white-stone St. Nicholas Cathedral. It has been built relatively recently, in 2001.

The oldest historic Chistopol mosque founded in 1817 and not closed even in the times of the Soviet Union - the wooden Nur mosque, a sample of Muslim architecture of the middle of XIX century, - has been operating until now.

A new elegant Anas mosque has been built in the traditional Tatar style.

An important page of the town’s history is associated with Soviet literature. During the war the Writers’ Union was evacuated here, and the temporary residents of Chistopol became Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Arseniy Tarkovsky, Marina Tsvetaeva, Aleksandr Fadeev and many other writers. A memorial museum of the author of “Doctor Zhivago” is arranged nowadays in the house of Vavilovs where Pasternak was renting a room.