Today I went for a long wander in Starotatarskaia Sloboda, the old Tatar section of town.

I was walking down a narrow, busy street lined with halal cafes and small kiosks selling assorted housewares, magazines, "Muslim goods" (clothing and books), and snacks. It was dusty and hot, and I was walking toward the minaret of a bright green-painted brick mosque. As I walked, the midday call to prayer began. I love the call to prayer, and hearing it is a rarity in the parts of Kazan I live and work in. Just as it began, half cry, half song, I walked past a homeless man, skin burned deep brown by the sun, either dead or sleeping in a pile of grass, trash and dust under a tree. A tram clacked deafeningly by on the tracks that run down the middle of the street. A second came from the other direction, and then a third. Nobody even rides these trams; taking one is hardly faster than walking. They give the appearance that public transportation exists, but are in fact of no use to anyone. By the time they had passed, the call to prayer was over.

Probably I was just cranky, but this moment called to mind the themes of a great deal of Russian literature: Gogol and his innocent, mad heroes, crushed by the cruelty of their fellow men; Bulgakov's Muscovites, ordinary, decent people who have had their spirituality spoiled by the "apartment problem" - no one can get a decent place to live except by lying and cheating; the thoughtless savagery of Shalamov's Gulag. To say nothing of Dostoevsky! In short, the indifference and ease with which everyday life destroys beauty, the complete irrelevance of a call to prayer in a world of clacking, empty trams and dying homeless men.