Ildar Khanov lives in a temple of his own creation. It boasts a splendid array of minarets and domes that recall many of the world’s principal religions. Not quite what you might expect to find in the suburb of a city in the Russian Federation. But this is Russia with a twist, for Ildar Khanov lives in Tatarstan.
article summary —
Ildar Khanov is a mystic and a healer, an artist and even an architect. He lives on the edge of the city of Kazan (featured in the previous article), where he survives on minimal sleep — no more than four hours a day, he says — and donations from those whom he has healed.
Khanov’s magnum opus, a project on which he has been working for some twenty years, is one of the most extraordinary and eclectic buildings in Russia.
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Nicky Gardner and Susanne Kries manage hidden europe, a Berlin-based editorial bureau that supplies text and images to media across Europe. Together they edit hidden europe 
magazine. Nicky and Susanne are dedicated slow travellers. They delight in discovering the exotic in the everyday.
