Paul Goble
Staunton,
March 3 – Until the end of Soviet times, many members of the Volga Tatar
community in the Russian capital spoke Tatar and maintained their Muslim
identity; but since 1991, they have been overwhelmed by the influx of Tatars
who had been living in Central Asia and who on leaving there came to Moscow rather
than to Kazan, Marat Safarov says.
Most
of the new arrivals speak Russian rather than Tatar as their first language and,
as educated professionals, are less closely tied to Islam than Tatars who had
lived and worked in the Russian capital earlier, the historian says in the
course of a lengthy article on the community (moslenta.ru/city/ushlo-vremya-kogda-tatarskaya-rech-zdes-zvuchala-na-ulicakh.htm).
Many
of the Tatars in Moscow are thus acculturated and even on their way to partial
or full assimilation by the ethnic Russians, he suggests, something that has
sparked controversy of just how many Tatars there are now in the Russian
capital. The 2010 census says there are 149,000; but many Tatars believe that
there are many more, perhaps as many as a million.
Unlike
the 2002 census which had many problems, Safarov says, the 2010 enumeration was
relatively good. But it failed to capture those who have ties to the Tatar community
either via one or another parent or by marriage. If such people are included
among the Tatars, the larger figure Tatars give is not as unreasonable as it
might appear.
While
such people have generally lost the Tatar language, they remain attached to
national traditions and festivals and attend mosque on major holidays. Such links, he continues, are part of “a
natural process for a megalopolis” and no reason for “panic” among the Tatar
community.
That
is all the more so, Safarov says, because “people continue to visit the Tatar
cultural center and the mosque, and their number in that regard is not
declining.”
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