LET US NOT DAMAGE THE CITY

Walking in the streets with the local mayor is not just a promenade; for the mayor, it is also part of his work. Whenever accosted by a civic-minded compatriot — of which there are many — he has to answer his queries, or at the very least his greetings

LET US NOT DAMAGE THE CITY

We are as far North as the Muslim faith has expanded. People often ask us to give old churches to their parishes. We always do it, but I never fail to make sure that, if say we give another church to an Orthodox community, at the same time we make a similar offer to a Muslim group. We have to be fair, since we have an almost perfect fifty-fifty split between Muslims and Orthodox

Weather in Kazan was lousy. Not a single ray of sunshine made it through the clouds, and a drizzle, as if not totally convinced whether any of its precious water was to be wasted on that day, had obviously a change of mind every thirty minutes.We were walking with Kamil Iskhakov, mayor of Kazan, and our photographer, Yuri Feklistov, was complaining: «You did not take your precautions. Our mayor in Moscow, Yuri Lujkov, would have sent a couple of planes circling up there to shoot at the clouds and make good weather for us to take pictures».True, photographers hate weather like this. Me, I did not mind. The mayor was not showing any discomfort either

SOME HISTORY

— I never thought that Kazan is older than Moscow, Mr. Iskhakov. How come you started to build it up before we did?

— It is not only Kazan; the whole Tatarstan has considerable seniority. The kingdom of Tatarstan, one of the oldest Muslim states, has a history of more than three thousand years. With the record of Kazan's age, we were lucky not to have been registered as some two hundred years younger than Moscow. At the end of the 19th century, the city's governor asked the Duma to authorize the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Kazan. To prove his case, he submitted all sorts of historical documents. The Duma forwarded his file to the Imperial University of Kazan, asking for an expert opinion. At the time, that was the procedure for such decision-making. Having studied the documents, the historians returned the file and said that the age of this town could be more, or as well less than 500 years, since the available facts were inconclusive. Which meant: keep on trying. Thus there were no celebrations. Today, we thank Allah for it. Should the decision have been different, we would have been today only six hundred years old, based on the original evidence gathered.

Later on, at the times of the Communist Party rule, the same suggestion came up once more, after some new facts had been discovered. In 1997, the idea was to celebrate the 800th anniversary. We even began to get ourselves organized for the festivities, since that was what the local Party boss said: «Let's get started». A book about the city was printed in Italy, other memorabilia were ordered, and a program of celebrations was drawn up. In the meantime, a new file with all relevant documents had been submitted to the Politburo. And the Politburo sent it to the Academy of Sciences of USSR. The project flopped, and those of us who worked in the local Party's administration were told that it was because of the Politburo. But I have learnt since then, while researching this matter, that our proposal was turned down by the Academy of Sciences. Its reply to the Politburo's enquiry was the same as before: the city can be older or younger; there is not sufficient evidence. Indeed, it was not easy to establish to truth since Kazan had seen so many battles, and had been overrun and burnt down by enemies so many times, that no manuscripts survived.

But we wanted to know our past. I have been the mayor of this town for almost fourteen years now, a national record, and after the first five or six years in office, I started a serious investigation into this matter. I found and studied all the existing relevant documents with utmost care; I did not want to repeat the mistakes others had already made. To make a long story short, five years of hard work later, all five research centers and the council of the historical department of the Academy of Sciences of Russia firmly agreed that Kazan was soon to be 1000 years old. To achieve this, we even had to ask mathematicians to approximate a date, using all sorts of contradictory data at our disposal. They came up with the year 1005.

After that, we had to put these facts into a legal framework at government level. The administration of Boris Yeltsin drafted a decree proclaiming the celebration of Kazan's anniversary, and put it into the bureaucratic mill, where the draft eventually disappeared. When we tried to locate it, we were quietly advised: come on, boys, be serious, it would be so inappropriate and unbecoming if Kazan were to be proclaimed older than Moscow. Undaunted, we persisted, and it paid off. We even won the mayor of Moscow, Yuri Lujkov, to our cause: he agreed that there was nothing wrong with Kazan being older than Moscow.

— But, in the absence of manuscripts, how can you establish the exact date of the first settlement?

— There are many ways to do it, one being through the use of circumstantial proof. Kazan was built as a fortress to protect Volga Bulgaria and its capital from frequent invasions by the Vikings and other Nordic tribes. According to some sources, after 1005, life in Volga Bulgaria became much more peaceful. That means, the invaders were effectively stopped somewhere on their way, unable to overcome a new powerful stronghold at some place up the Volga river by which they used to come.

— I would think you are a bit carried away when you say — powerful stronghold. Must have been just a tiny wooden fort in those early days?

— Maybe, yes, in the early days. But in 16th century it was definitely a big fortress, strong enough to resist assaults by sizeable armies. Ivan the Terrible only succeeded after two failed attempts. The third time, his troops set up camp on Sviyazhsk, which was then a deserted island on the Volga, close to Kazan. Quite a camp it was, too, they even hauled in a church, knocked down and loaded on a raft. There are still plenty of ruins there. From that island, they launched their attacks. But they managed to get through only when they dug a tunnel, reaching under the ramparts of the Kremlin, and exploded a bomb, causing the collapse of part of the walls. At Kazanka, where according to the legend the tunnel was started, there is a monument in memory of those warriors. Next October, it will be the 450th anniversary of the take-over of Kazan by Ivan the Terrible. So the orthodox part of the people of Kazan want us to rebuild the memorial chapel on the site of the common grave of Russian soldiers. An inscription there says: In the memory of orthodox warriors who fell at the siege of Kazan. So the other part of the people of Kazan are full of indignation and claim that this is outrageous, since these warriors were aggressors. They want us instead to erect a monument in the memory of the defenders of Kazan. Therefore, we will commemorate this date in peace only if we rebuild the chapel and at the same time erect the monument to the defenders.

— In the Soviet days, did you have any mosques in town open for prayers?

— We had only one left, the mosque of Marj'ani Shigabuddin.

We crossed a small inner court of a decrepit house inside the Kremlin and emerged in the middle of a building site, right in front of a mosque of celestial beauty ringed by cranes. Light, fragile, as if floating in the air and crowned by domes of an almost transparent blue, its eight minarets were pointing powerfully to the sky. Elegant transverse beams, separated by glass walls, gave it a look so delicate, and yet so incredibly strong.

Yuri and myself were impressed.

— Great place. It is so beautiful. Looks like the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.

— Do you think it does? To me, there is nothing like it in the whole world. And you know, if you look at old pictures of the town, there are mosques everywhere, so many of them. Under Ivan the Terrible, they were all destroyed, and all Tatars were sent out of town. The place where they settled is still called Old Tatar Quarter. Churches were then built where mosques had stood. There are Muslims who believe that the Annunciation Cathedral, main Orthodox temple in Tatarstan, has been built on the basement of the mosque of Qul Serif, which was the central mosque of the Kremlin and one of the most beautiful in the world. Knowing Ivan the Terrible's temper and the normal practices of those days, one can easily agree that this is what had happened. Of the Annunciation Cathedral, people always said that it is on the site of the mosque of Qul Serif, and that the mosque itself had been reincarnated in Moscow, in the form of the St Basil Cathedral on the Red Square, because the mosque also had eight domes. We want this argument to be settled amicably between both parties. An extensive research has been conducted in the Annunciation Cathedral and it proved that the cathedral stands on its own basement. Our opponents have found there one Muslim tomb stone, and claimed that this was proof that the mosque had been standing there. We looked at that stone, and it was clearly part of the brickwork of a wall of the altar. So we agreed that yes, the stone was there, but purely by mistake. That put an end to the discussion. At the same time, we worked to rebuild the mosque of Qul Serif, with all its eight domes. Our problem was that there were no detailed pictures of the mosque, only one with a general view from far away. We therefore called for offers and selected a new design.

— When do you plan to sanctify, or rather to open the mosque for prayers?

— We have now mostly finished the building part. High officials from Iran came to visit us, and an agreement has been reached that they would supply carpets for the carpeted area, 2200 square meters and 7 400 kilograms all in all. These carpets are ready and we are waiting for their delivery. We are also in the process of selecting sub-contractors who will have to complete the interiors. Everybody wants this job, there are fifteen companies competing for it. I don't think we will manage before end of this year, but next year the mosque should be ready. And at the same time, we will be renovating the Annunciation Cathedral, thus maintaining a fair parity between Muslims and Orthodox communities.

— As a politician, you are supposed to stay away from religion, and yet you are right in the middle of it, deep in the cauldron.

— Well, a mayor is not exactly a politician, rather an administrator. In this office, you cannot be out of the main stream, you have to feel the current trends, including in religious matters. I recently had an audience with the Pope, and we discussed the possibility of returning to Russia one of its Great Sanctities — the Miraculous Icon of the Virgin of Kazan. We were given ten minutes, but we talked for half an hour.

— Did you speak Russian?

— No, we had an interpreter, but the Pope knows Russian language well. So, after we spent these thirty minutes talking, he missed the time when he had to show up in a window so that the crowd could see him. All these people, waiting for the Pope's benediction, they were getting anxious, they thought that maybe he was dying and could not even walk to the window. Yet it was simply that the two of us were having a conversation, until they started to make phone calls hinting that this audience was to be finished. And then the Pope turned to me and said in Russian, with some surprise in his voice: Look at them, they are already calling me.

— And what about the icon, did you agree about its return?

— We did. The problem is, the Pope would like to bring it personally, and yet he is not welcome in Russia.

THE METRO

At the gate of the building site of one of the Metro stations, the snow white Volga of the mayor charged head on into a tractor whose driver exploded with abuse (follows an approximate translation of the diatribe into usable language): «Where do you think you are going, stupid man? Can't you see, silly you, that this hopeless tractor has no damned grip because it is so damn slippery!»

Being a long time fan of visits to unfinished metro stations, I followed eagerly the mayor down narrow ladders, to the bottom of a huge hole in the ground that is to become the «Cloth Mills Quarter» station: a factory built under Peter the Great is indeed still standing in this part of town. We could see two tunnels on both sides, dry, well lit, and quiet, since it was a day off.

— When do you reckon you will have it open?

— If everything goes according to plan, as I hope it will, we should have an operational line 8.5 kilometers long, with five stations, by the time of the city's anniversary festivities. Those stations will be «Kremliovskaia», «Tukai Square», then this one, and after it «Ametievo» and «Gorki».

— Sort of a present to the town's people for the anniversary?

— Not really, because a present is supposed to be something nice, but not necessarily a must. And launching the Metro in Kazan is definitely a pressing need. It should help to ease the traffic in the down town area. We are also building two motorways that will bypass the inner city. Without all this, and given the present congested conditions, we may damage it. Hence our plan to keep all traffic away from there as much as possible. But in some way, yes, it is also a present to our people, one of the one hundred and thirty one that we are preparing: this is the number of projects we must complete by the anniversary. We rebuilt and refurbish many sites and monuments. So there will be plenty of pleasant surprises.

— Looks like you have made quite some progress here. When did you start to build this station?

— In 1996.

— Was this when your population reached one million people?

— No, this was in 1977.

— But in those Soviet days, if my memory serves me right, as soon as you had one million people in a city, they would start building a Metro there.

— At that point, you only became eligible. But before actual construction work could start, you had to put together a maze of technical documents. My predecessors handled that. And I was lucky enough to have the honor of starting the real construction. It wasn't easy, believe me. Think of it: Ufa and Kazan were only included in the national plan of construction of Metro in 1995!

— Must be a tricky business, building Metro stations?

— The worst part is getting included in the plan. First thing after that, you want the right digging gear. Ours was imported from Canada, specifically designed for the sort of wet underground that we have here. Next, you organize supplies of concrete framing and walls parts. We placed all orders with local businesses, thus boosting their turnovers. And at the end, we have the fastest digging pace nationwide.

— How many meters per day?

— Our best result was fourteen meters, and the average daily is ten to twelve. It is a lot.

— Where do your working teams come from?

— They are all locals. That is what makes us strong: we only rely on our own potential. Look at our friends from Ufa. We started at the same time as they did, in 1996. Yeltsin came to visit them to lay down the first stone. Since then, they did not make any progress. Nothing has been done. No Metro is in sight but for this one first stone. Tells you how difficult a job it is to build it.

IN TOWN

— Mr. Mayor, this is all great, no doubt about it. Now how about the bad things, don't you have any?

He looked sad. Like a poet reminded that he is three months late on his rent.

— Sure there are bad things too. If you want to see some, just walk into this inner court.

We did as advised. Right in the middle we found a shabby house built with bricks and logs, with broken empty windows and a smallish outside toilet propped against the wall. On the right side, a building was half way through the collapsing process. Pointing to it, the mayor said:

— Some runaway kids from the streets lived there. I once went to talk to them and climbed up there. They had built some beds and a ladder. There are quite a few other places like this one; we have not yet got rid of all of them.

— Does Vladimir Putin help you?

— He certainly does. There are two governmental boards supervising the preparations for the anniversary, a republican commission, headed by the President of Tatarstan, Mintimer Shaimiev, and a national State Commission, headed by Putin who also chairs another board for the anniversary of Saint Petersburg. He already came twice, to meet people and see our housing.

— You mean historical sites?

— I mean run-down areas. Shantytowns. He was invited by families and went to see them. Tatars have great traditions of hospitality. They offered him good food and were happy to have him. They also used the occasion to went their grieves.

— Do you have many people still living in shantytowns?

— More than enough. We have already relocated 22 282 families, and there are some nine thousand left. But our housing projects are completed very efficiently, we do even better than Moscow: we build almost 50% more new apartments per capital. Last year, we built 602 300 square meters, and Moscow built three and a half million, but it has ten times more people. We once compared our figures and Yuri Lujkov was very surprised that we were leading.

— Who are these apartments for? For everybody or only for those who really need them?

— We have priorities, like families with five or more children who cannot wait. We do it for them.

— Do you have many of those?

— Quite a few. And bigger families too, some with up to thirteen children, all still in their mom's care. For families like that, we build stand-alone houses. This is a real priority here, same as everything that has to do with demographics, and we have to be very careful. After the beginning of perestroika, the number of births went down, and mortality climbed at the same rate as in the rest of the country. We worked hard to support young families and to encourage them to have children. We even introduced special local food stamps for big low-income families so that they could afford enough food and clothing. As a result, the negative trend has been reversed.

— Will you preserve the inner city?

— Most of it is still run down. There are many shabby houses that stand empty and look depressing. The problem with rebuilding them is that those who lived there had their toilet in the yard, took water from a well and consumed very little electric power, barely enough to make their TV sets and lights work. Because of that we have not only to rebuild the house itself but also to bring in the infrastructure. This has an immediate effect on the overall costs.

Remember the empty area next to the building site of the Metro station? There used to be there a block of derelict barracks. We secured a loan of eleven million dollars financed by the Bank of Reconstruction and Development, razed down the whole lot, leveled the ground, built the infrastructure and put the lot on sale for further development. In the future, more and more projects like this will help to build nice two-three stories high houses throughout Kazan.

— Why not skyscrapers? Don't you want some shining glass and steel around?

— Not in the inner city. We want to keep it as it used to be.

— Streets there are really narrow, certainly not wide enough to drive around in a car.

— Where feasible, we will make them wider, but in most places it is impossible because there are so many historical sites and monuments everywhere. Mind you, it is not easy at all to rehabilitate a town while preserving the historical landscape; but this is what we aim at. No matter what it costs, we do not want to damage the city.

Valeri CHUMAKOV