Chak-Chak Museum
The museum occupies an ordinary wooden dwelling house in Old Tatar village, the Muslim quarter of Kazan. The house was slightly embellished for tourist gloss but retained an authentic look. The primary goals of going here are, of course, the titular Tatar sweets in all its varieties and real Tatar tea, which is brewed with herbs and dried apricots. In the centre of Kazan in Old-Tatar Sloboda there is an interesting place of the Chak-chak museum. Here everything is connected with the Tatar culture and its ancient traditions. Many people like chak- chak, but many people know very little about it. That’s why this interesting museum appeared in Kazan. The excursion is combined with a pleasant tea-drinking ceremony and the old Tatar songs. In the museum there are 2 main rooms with a lot of old things. The first part of the excursion is in the first room, where visitors learn about the history of Kazan, about the ancestors of modern Tatar peoples. In the second room guests of the museum enjoy tea drinking and chak- chak tasting. Here you feel as if you come to your great-grandmother: you see cozy home environment, a lot of wooden and old things, you are always welcomed here to drink tea with the main attribute on the table – the samovar. It is interesting that before sweets were only available to rich people, that is why dark (from sweets) teeth were considered a sign of well-being, and therefore the girls specially blackened their teeth. Fortunately, Peter I forbade them to do it. |