Airbnb in Kazan

We had times throughout our journey where we wished Airbnb would be available (it didn’t exist in any country between Armenia and Russia). It’s a different feeling having an apartment or house to yourself, with no reception desk that you need to walk by every time you leave the house. We were therefore happy that we found a nice Airbnb home in Kazan. Kazan is the capital of the republic of Tartastan. The region has it’s own language and the majority of Tartans are Sunni Muslims.

The parents of our Airbnb host (who was herself in Moscow) welcomed us. Right after we entered the house we saw a red CEE-32 outlet. What a surprise! Just like Airbnb, there were no red CEE outlets between Armenia and Russia.

Meeting Arthur and Regina

On our way to Kazan, a car stopped next to us while we took a short break on the side of the road. We met Arthur. He was traveling for work and has seen an Instagram post by the hotel that we stayed at in Naberezhnye Chelny. He told us that he first thought it’s a joke, what the hotel posted. But latest when he met us, he knew it wasn’t.

We met with Arthur and his wife Regina later the evening in Kazan. They tried to help us to get a charging station next to Arthur’s workplace to work. It didn’t really work out… and took them 24 hours to make it work. I guess, not so many electric vehicles try to charge there. For us, it was the first real charging station since Georgia. It already felt create that people at least intend to build up an infrastructure for charging EVs in Kazan.

We spent the rest of the evening walking through the gorgeous Kazan, with its Kremlin, waterfront and many old buildings. The city of Kazan has a great atmosphere.

Charging attempts

The charging station that I just mentioned, was our charging attempt #2. Charging attempt #1 was at a basement parking of a mall in Kazan. Only after a long search we found the charging station, that was a.) fully occupied with combustion engines, b.) wasn’t working and c.) seemed to be that badly wired that hardly the supposed 22kW would be possible to charge there.

Charging attempt #3 was at a different mall basement parking. The parking garage was equipped with quite a few CEE-32 outlets. But again here, the wiring was bad. When we raised the ampere number above 20, the voltage dropped dramatically. We only had a few minutes to try this out. After that the security came and told us to stop charging. I guess, no EV friendly or customer oriented crowd in that shopping mall.

Charging attempt #4 was at the Airbnb home. We could use the above mentioned red CEE-32. Except that we lost about 10%, charging worked out perfectly.