Qolşärif Mosque

The Kul Sharif mosque in Kazan is the second largest mosque in Russia. It is named after Kul Sharif, the last imam of Kazan before the Russian conquest. With the neighboring Annunciation Cathedral it is a symbol of the peaceful coexistence of Muslim and Orthodox population of Tatarstan.

It was built by order of Mintimer Shaimiev, President of Tatarstan, the Kazan Kremlin and is a monument to the fallen in the Russian conquest of Kazan at the end of the Moscow -Kazan Wars 1552 Tatars be. The work began in 1996, the mosque was officially opened on 24 July 2005.

Near the present site was located in the 16th century, the main mosque of the Kazan Khanate, receives their traditional shape with eight minarets of the new building in modern forms and reduced to four minarets. The historic mosque was destroyed in 1552 in the conquest of Kazan; some preserved parts were probably built in the Moscow St. Basil's Cathedral, begun in 1555, which should be the inclusion of the Khanate also structurally in the Czarist Empire.

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