The Stranger I Met 2 Years Ago!

I knew as much about the city as you do now. My introduction to this city was just a picture I saw on the internet a few years ago. That was a picture of a mosque ... and that one picture pulled me to visit Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan.

But when you arrive in the city at midnight after a twenty-four hour train journey and you find out that your reservation for the first night in the hostel is not being received by the receptionist due to some technical reasons. So you can't stay there overnight. Also, you should not be allowed to stay in the lounge. All you have to do is put one of your bag packs in the store and come back to the hostel twelve hours later.

When all the hostels near the city are also booked and you have to spend a few hours with drunk people sleeping in the park.

When the police pick you up from there, and you have to spend the rest of the night at the noisy Kazan railway station.

Will you remain in love with this city like me?

Why?

Because all of a sudden you meet a beautiful stranger who has spent her first night in Kazan at the train station just like you. When you look at her, she looks like a beautiful Japanese doll, whose name you think of a Persian princess and when she speaks you say, no she is local.

When you see her smile, you remember someone's words... “Her smile is the simplest miracle that she can create anytime.”

When you are the worst dancer in the world but she invites you to a tango dance but all the time your eyes are on the ground instead of each other because she is wearing long heels and you are barefoot.

When you go to McDonald's for breakfast with her and you start loving their slogan 'I'm Lovin' It'

While walking with her, you even forget that an hour later you have a train to Saint Petersburg. When you pack up your stuff from the hostel and arrive at the train station, you find that you are one minute late and the train has gone.

When the next revelation comes to you that you have to take a flight for Minsk, Belarus from Saint Petersburg after five days and you will not be able to reach Saint Petersburg for the next four days.

While sitting in the railway station lounge, You are canceling your missed train ticket and trying to get a refund. You are also canceling your ticket on the flight from Saint Petersburg to Minsk five days later and booking a hostel for four more days in Kazan.

When few hours later, you book a ticket for a flight from Kazan to Minsk five days later and on the way back to the hostel, You stop at a coffee shop for a cup of coffee and someone comes to you and says...‘Welcome to Kazan’!!!

You suddenly start smiling and immediately recall some of your own words, "No, she is local."

After a few days, when that beautiful stranger returned to her hometown and left Kazan, you felt like that nature brought you here from the other side of the world, just to make you meet with this beautiful soul.

And when, two years after all these events, you still want to go back to this city once again so that you can walk with this beautiful stranger, without fear of missing the train….

Do you think that such a city can be hated and forgotten???

More info: greenpassportdiaries.com