Tatarstan Is the Muslim Girlfriend Putin Locks Up

Summary

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While Chechnya, the most notorious of Russia's Muslim republics, has seen endless violence, spawned countless terrorists and been constantly exposed to Russia's horrific methods of 'control', Tatarstan has seemingly achieved the impossible: Shaimiev has appeased the Kremlin and yet managed to preserve the republic's identity, and obtained enough of the attributes of an independent state to give the illusion of autonomy.

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Tatarstan Is the Muslim Girlfriend Putin Locks Up

Kazan, Tatarstan

The 12-hour train journey from Moscow was a blur of vodka, of only visiting the bathroom in pairs for our own safety and, most frustratingly, of being told repeatedly to 'calm down' in Russian by our formidable escort, Natasha. As we got further away from Moscow the stops became littered with people holding miscellaneous o...

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