Advanced Master Lock Combination

German media about the Tatars (1 ) - prelude to the Tatar Cultural Days, Berlin, Sept. 2010

SPIEGEL

14/09/2009

Russia

In the kingdom of the Tartars

From Thomas Heinloth

Photo Gallery: 9 images

Thomas Heinloth

The mosque is located next to the Cathedral: living in the autonomous republic of Tatarstan in Russia for centuries, a multicultural population mix, with which it takes its origins not as accurate: "If we were properly washed, we are all Mongolians. " It is the one day each year on which shakes the desert in the south of Zelenodolsk, the day shivering in the grass and the sun burned the dry birch , to the dust opaque to the race track and field mice flee shod Hooves at a gallop. Two dozen sweaty riders on horses, deep in the saddle, drew the Tubetejka cap over his forehead, on the hunt for an embroidered handkerchief. Who in the wild ride from the branch breaks is a hero for at least a day and that day is long in Zelenodolsk, if not the longest of all.

It is the day of the plow-resistant, Sabantui to celebrate with the Tartars, that the seeding is now done and you can wait for the harvest. And to show the Tatars Sabantui what they are: a great horse people. However, can be found at any one ridden saddle to a pulp Piece of raw beef. The steak tartare, the legend, so came to his delicacy, invented by the French. The real

Tartar steak is usually a kebab on the other hand, fist-sized pieces, mounted on a meter-long spear. They turn now to hundreds of charcoal, and in the plume is mixed grill, the smell of cotton candy, beer and toasted almonds.

Since the late morning, people pour forth from the cement-gray mountains of Zelenodolsk. A steady stream of visitors poured in a celebratory mood in the direction of track, to where rotating carousels and ticket sellers roar.

long since they are not all farmers here, but Sabantui is always a peasant feast was, therefore, is one of the administrative head of the city in his opening speech agricultural excellence, praises cooperatives, which were higher than the plan , and orders distributed to the men and women of Zelenoldolsk who have distinguished themselves particularly in the field at the diet of the Tatar population of maize and wheat. The audience is Luba Feldman and says: "The speech I've known since my school days."

prefabricated buildings with names President

Luba grew up in a square of machines for living far from the racetrack, "Khrushcheva" says Luba. To sort this the generations of prefabricated housing in the cities of the Sputnik-periphery - to the Communist Party secretaries and presidents, could build them. The latest generation is called "Putinka" towering red brick blocks, even with noise-proof windows. The Brezhnev silos are popular because of its loggias, the Stalin buildings because of their notorious Außenklos. "Khrushcheva is the worst," says Luba, "Thin walls, poor heating.

The thin plate of Zelenodolsk she has long left behind, now lives on the German teacher an hour: in Kazan, Tatarstan where the heart beats. Not far from the ancient University, has studied Lenin and Tolstoy, she lives with her boyfriend in a two-room apartment. A representative residential community: Luba is Russian and Orthodox, and Muslim Tatar her boyfriend. "Is pretty much the average population," says Luba, "but is relative. Tatarstan has always been a multiethnic state. Here were the Volga Bulgarians, Turks, Russians, Ugrofinnen. This has been mixed over the centuries. And when we are washed properly, we're all Mongolians. "

It's not important who goes where in the Russian autonomous republic, where Orient and Occident meet. No Orthodox priests complained, as in the Kazan Kremlin next to the beautiful Annunciation Cathedral three years ago, the Kul-Sharif Mosque was built: an imposing building, turquoise tiled and lined with marble from the Urals and designed with carpets Iran, dominated by five huge minarets.

new life to Kazan

men and women pray here in the same room, because Islam Tatarstan is a relaxed, non-dogmatic and thus unveiled. No Imam would start here armed for a few grams of vodka or a glass of "Red October". And remain the Soviet star on the Kremlin's Spassky Tower must. "Nobody wanted to decide if we replace it with the cross or crescent," says Luba, "so we can hang him better." half Europe and half Asia Kazan will be, and again the city of culture, in the spiritual life is founded times Islamic and Orthodox Christian times. Everywhere the smell of fresh paint and cement, in the Tartar district get new plaster minarets, in the streets around the university, where more Russians live, scaffolding towers available around onion. And the secular face of the city on the Volga is being freshly painted: the magnificent facades of the houses at the Bauman-Boulevard, art nouveau and classical, light mint and cream. The downtown area around the Kremlin and the City Hall swept.

on weekends Luba accompany groups of tourists here - only her German, she seldom does. "The shops in the West are already there: McDonald's, Starbucks, Body Shop," she says, "only the people are still missing."

hardly a Russian tourist from Western Europe to find its way here, and the main task Ministry of Tourism is to declare that Kazan has nothing to do with Kazakhstan. Tatarstan is situated off the beaten Russia itineraries and not to the trans-Siberian railway. "But for it," says Luba, "we are situated on the Volga".

Mother ensures all

Matuschka, mother, called here the river, for the Volga provides the Tatars, it makes the desert green, brings fish and ships. Without the Volga Bulgarians would not come here to found a city without the big port Kazan would not become rich, first as a trading base, then with oil.

The Volga Tatars, the Kazan and accompanied by the seasons: in summer they are in the fine sand on the beach baths and watch the fishermen, piled up in the fall the October storm huge waves on the sea Kuibyschewschen as where the Volga meets the Kama and you see even on clear days, no more bank opposite can. And in winter they make road signs onto meter-thick ice for the truck, which then do not need bridges.

"At best, however," says Luba, "is the spring. When the last ice floes across the coastal pastures. And you know that the cold time now is rum. "Then turning soon as the Ferris wheel in Shurale Park again, in Kazan's pedestrian zone around the Bauman Boulevard set the gardener in the hanging baskets the petunias. And on the fields around Zelenodolsk tear the farmers in the still half-frozen ground, put corn and wheat and are counting the days until Sabantui if it smells like cotton candy and back of burnt kebab, and the dust opaque ü about the race track.

http://www.spiegel.de/reise/fernweh/0, 1518,648260,00. Html