I don't think that's how Kazan is nicknamed, but it probably should be. Certainly nothing is comparable for real to Constantinople, but Kazan has some touch of it: an impressive river (the Volga, again) and amazing views, a wonderful and warm weather (apparently not just in summer), a multicultural environment (a mosque and an Orthodox church live within the walls of its Kremlin), a Turkic language (although written in cyrillic, like those from the former Soviet Central Asian republics), a population which is mostly liberally Muslim (pork is shunned, but the occasional drink is not), and a vibrant nightlife (Baumana Ulitsa is Kazan's own Istiklal Caddesi). We spent only three days in Kazan, but we saw why people would want to spend more time there and enjoy the laid-back atmosphere.
Of course, not everything is rosy here either. While most of the “visible” city has been renovated in 2005 for the celebrations of the 1000 years of Kazan (a local told us that the number was actually taken out of thin air by officials, just to have some celebrations to do and impress the world with Kazan's beauties), several less-visible parts of the city are still a bit run-down and others are being restructured right now. But I suppose it is so in every major city.
The major interesting contradiction, for us, was the existence of a “gated community” right under the Kremlin: a series of pretty little new single-family houses with gardens, separated from the rest of the world by a 3-metre wall, with an actual helipad adjoining the entrance. We imagined that those were probably the residences of the notable and powerful, who somehow managed to have their little Suburbia built right in the centre, in front of a beautiful river panorama.
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