From Kazan to Grony.. How do the Muslims of Russia run their affairs under the Kremlin's banner?

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The Bulgars began to listen to the Qur’an on the banks of the Volga, while the Russians had not yet begun to build Christian churches on the banks of the Oka or to conquer all the places they conquered in the name of European civilization.

(Sergei Soloviev, Russian historian and philosopher)

On March 31, 1992, as the decade of the Soviets began to disintegrate republic after republic, a federation of all the self-governing republics was held to try to heal the wounds and curb the ambitions of those who remained within the new Russian Federation, and remained willing to join the ranks of the fledgling independent republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Russia's strength was not enough - as its hopes were - to stop the Kazakh independence train, the last to independence from the Soviets after the declaration of the Russian Federation itself in late 1991, but the weak Kremlin at the time believed in its ability to change the train's course only if he drove it himself, to take it back to Moscow.

It was so difficult to direct that long train of non-Russian peoples back into the grip of Moscow as it had been in the sixties, and so the new rulers of Russia had to stand at a station satisfactory to all parties.

By the end of the twentieth century, Kazan, the capital of the Tatars, had assumed its position as one of Russia's richest and largest cities along with the neighboring Muslim-majority republic of Bashkortostan.

The federal meeting took place and seemed to be somewhat successful, with the exception of the two republics of Tatarstan and Chechnya, which had a Muslim majority but were quite hetero-racial to the Russian majority.

For a moment, it seemed that Kazakhstan would not be the last to emerge from the mantle of the Russians, especially since no one expected the Russians' ability at that moment to resolve a military battle, let alone two battles together;

One in the Caucasus and the other in the far north of Central Asia.

However, abstaining from attending the federal meeting was the only thing that seemed to be common between the two Muslim republics;

Both of them later took a completely different direction, in some way reversing their position within Russia on the one hand, and their history with Russian rule on the other.

By the end of the twentieth century, Kazan, the capital of the Tatars, had assumed its position as one of Russia's richest and largest cities along with the neighboring Muslim-majority republic of Bashkortostan; Where the Tatar "Mintimer Shaimiev" presided over the battle of drafting a new agreement to determine the nature of the relationship between Tatarstan and Moscow, while Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, with the neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia, turned into a vast battlefield between its militants and the Russian army, until the name "Kadyrov" appeared as a Chechen ally to the Kremlin with his fist bloody in Grozny.

Between the flat Kazan on the banks of the Volga, which has been associated with Russian rule since the sixteenth century, and whose people knew Islam three centuries after its descent, and mountainous Chechnya, which did not know the direct rule of the Russians before the nineteenth century, and did not know Islam until two centuries before them, the Muslims of Russia are divided. The Turkish races are between two separate fates and two histories, with nothing in common with their Russian rulers in Moscow.

The Muslim republics of Russia (Al-Jazeera)

Kazan: The Complete Republic

"Swallow the manifestations of sovereignty as much as you can."

(Mikhail Gorbachev, speaking for the Russian Autonomous Republics in 1990)

Rustam Minnikhanov's words were clear to journalists, dismissing Putin's tough decisions on economic sanctions against Turkey, which were implemented in the wake of the Turkish downing of a Russian airliner in December 2015. Minnikhanov stated that Turkish companies will act as they are. In the small Republic of Tatarstan, which he has headed since 2010, he said: "The Turks are our brothers, we are Tatars, and they belong to the same religion and language tree. We are friends of everyone who invests in Tatarstan."

One and a half billion dollars is the value of Turkish investments in Tatarstan, whose population does not exceed four million, and whose area does not exceed half one percent of the area of ​​the Russian giant. However, the Turks' share of the Tatar national product ($44 billion), which exceeds the Tatars' share of Russian geography itself, seemed more important to decision-makers in Kazan, the sixth largest city in Russia, and the capital of the most numerous people after the Russians within the Russian Federation.

This was not the first time that Kazan fought tug-of-wars with the Kremlin over the borders of Moscow's sovereignty within the small and rich republic. It even went as far as declaring citizenship for the Tatar Republic, and then its own passports; To open the door to the possibility of obtaining Tatar citizenship without Russian and to attract Tatars scattered around the world to Kazan, but the announcement stopped when Moscow made a symbolic concession that preserves the "sovereignty" of Tatarstan as a republic and stops the risk of Tatar naturalization, a special design for Russian passports issued to Tatars containing their flag.

Tatarstan presented a special model over the two decades in which Shayimev ruled and then was succeeded by Minnikhanov, a model inspired by the Kremlin itself in its federal system with republics desiring some independence. retaining half of the added taxes collected inside Tatarstan, the value of which is jointly determined by the Tatar government with the central government, which is an exceptional case; The rest of the Russian republics are only allowed to keep only a quarter of taxes, as well as determine their own foreign and investment policies.

The Tatars do not hesitate to unleash their various forms of independence from the Kremlin, including their firm belief that their republic is a "complete sovereign republic" even if it accepts to fall under the banner of the Russian Federation, especially since the search for comprehensive independence from the Russians would be an absurd matter, given the Russian states that It surrounds Tatarstan from every direction.

Perhaps this geographic imperative of the paradox is what gives the Russians complete confidence in the inability of the Tatars to be completely independent, and also gives the Tatars the certainty of the ability to raise the ceiling in dealing with the Kremlin, at the same time.

Remarkably, Minnikhanov's role in attempting to establish an explicitly regional political role for his republic was when Russia acquired Crimea in 2014.

However, this confidence does not prevent moments of tension and attraction from time to time; The Kremlin tried to prevent the presidents of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan from using the title “President of the Republic,” a decision that did not find an echo in Kazan; where "Minikhanov" continues to enjoy his title and powers, as opposed by the World Council of Tatars, which represents all Tatars around the world and most of them outside Tatarstan; The Council even went to the possibility of requesting an observer seat in the United Nations to confirm the status of Tatarstan as a sovereign "federal" republic.

With confidence, Minnikhanov announced two years ago his intention to introduce legislation in the Russian Duma to open the door to Islamic banking, in the hope that Tatarstan would become a stronghold of the world of Islamic banking in Russia; Rather, with its most important regional partners, such as Turkey, Central Asia and China, in addition to his independent movements in the world of foreign policy, which reached the point of mediation between Moscow and its neighbors, or its new provinces, as happened in the Crimea issue, as if he were the head of a truly independent state.

It was remarkable the role of "Minikhanov" in trying to establish an explicit regional political role for his republic when Russia acquired the Crimea in 2014, an island that in the past had a majority Tatar population, and is called the Crimean Tatars, but speaks a language closer to Turkish than to contemporary Tatar. The man made frequent trips to the island to mediate between the Crimean Tatars, who are a minority today, and Moscow, and he actually succeeded in opening the door to communication between them after the Crimean Tatar Council had previously refused to accept accession to Russia.

A truly complete republic enjoys most forms of sovereignty while maintaining a fickleness with the Kremlin, a long political tradition that probably dates back to the Russian Empress Catherine's openness in the eighteenth century to the Muslim lands of Russia, allowing them to build their mosques and practice their rituals;

Rather, the inauguration of a council to represent them inside Russia, a tradition that brought the Tatars slowly to normalization with the umbrella of the Russian Empire, without applying it completely to them as it does with others, and enjoying enough manifestations of sovereignty for them, and delegating Moscow what a small republic cannot do.

two thousand kilometers south of Kazan;

Where Grozny is located, the Russians and the Chechens were not fortunate to develop a similar model, or rather, the bloody history of the Russians, the mountainous nature of the region, and the different political culture of its people did not allow the Chechens to accept a Russian umbrella, and the Russians themselves did not allow the emergence of a complete small republic in that region due to its location Very fragile.

The Muslim Caucasus: the curse of Grozny

"Yermolov" is the Russian name that never goes away from the memory of the Chechens, with all its brutal crimes and its comprehensive campaign to uproot the people of the region from their villages

“It is an old tale that has been repeated in our history: the Kremlin takes care of a little dragon, and then has to feed it constantly so that it does not burn everything.”

(Russian opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya, speaking about Kadyrov's authority in Chechnya)

Grozny, this is how General Alexei Yermolov wanted it to be at the end of the nineteenth century, a stronghold of fear and dread, just as the word means in Russian. Grozny fortified on the edge of the Caucasus Mountains, before embarking on his bloody military campaign against the Chechens in the nineteenth century.

The conflict between “Yermolov” and the Chechens has drawn the features of the region until today. Grozny is the capital of the Chechen Republic with all its connotations, and “Yermolov” is the Russian name that never goes away from the memory of the Chechens, with all its brutal crimes and its comprehensive campaign to uproot the people of the region from their villages in the plains bordering the mountains, the liquidation of all anti-Moscow tribal elements;

And even the rape of every woman who fell into the hands of the Russians at the time.

This approach was completely different from that taken by Moscow with the Tatars during the reign of Catherine;

The same empress oversaw the beginnings of the bloody history of the Russians in the Caucasus with a military campaign that did not bear fruit after a rebellion led by Sheikh Mansour in the first Chechen uprising against the Russians. However, the failure of the first mission did not deter the empire wishing to expand south;

It actually captured most of the North Caucasus from weak Iranian rule in the nineteenth century, and came face to face with Muslims it had not previously ruled directly, unlike the Tatars.

So, "Yermilov" was entrusted with the task of crushing the Chechens, so that the Russians' military concentration began in the relatively flat valleys.

"Yermilov" was then entrusted with the task of crushing the Chechens, so that the Russians' military concentration began in the relatively flat valleys, in return for the retreat of the Chechen tribes to the Caucasus heights after the destruction of their villages, and they launched their tribal wars from there, a strategy that led to a completely opposite result to the Tatar model in Kazan;

The nomadic and revolutionary nature of the tribes that moved away from the agricultural life in search of stability and more desire to reach political settlements such as the Tatar settlement increased.

Grozny today is still Grozny of yesteryear, but someone else was assigned the task of "terrorizing" the Chechens rather than the Russians whom the city terrorized and horrified as much as it did in the 1990s. Grozny was "chined" according to the policies of Vladimir Putin, who tried to impose a Tatar model from above; Through a group of ex-combatants who were contained by the Kremlin, the "Chechen Mujahideen" considered them to be nothing more than "traitors to the cause", as is the norm in such conflicts.

However, the curse of Grozny was never broken, to take on a new "domestic" image backed by Moscow under Ramzan Kadyrov, de facto tsar of the Caucasian Republic since 2004, a curse imposed on the journalist "Anna Politkovskaya", mentioned above; Where she was killed after her special interest in the human rights file in Chechnya, without anyone knowing, as is customary in Russia, who the killer was, although the fingers point to "Kadyrov" and his entourage, who have one of the worst human rights records in the world.

Like his father, Kadyrov sees no point in quarreling with the Russian Empire, and believes that “Wahhabism” poses a greater danger to the culture of Chechens than Russian cultural uprooting in the same way that Russia threatens, a policy under which the Kremlin government gives him billions of dollars to develop Grozny;

so that the central funding constitutes more than 80% of the budget of Chechnya, which is witnessing its most stable era, and its effective repression at the same time, under the grip of Kadyrov;

In fact, its capital is witnessing half-successful attempts to hide its bloody history with its skyscrapers and the huge Ahmed Kadyrov Mosque built by the Turks similar to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.

Perhaps Kadyrov, despite his Chechenness or perhaps because of it, is the only man who succeeded in completing what General Yermolov did not complete completely for Moscow (Reuters)

Kadyrov does not miss an opportunity to show his loyalty to the Kremlin and to Putin personally, who arrived to dispatch part of his "Kadyrovtsy" militia to eastern Ukraine to support the Moscow-backed rebels, threaten and attack opponents of the Kremlin with aggressive statements, but his growing power, and his desire to contain the religiosity of the majority The overwhelming majority of Chechens push him to adopt a conservative agenda to bolster his popularity at home, such as his pro-polygamy statements, which are officially prohibited in Russia, demeaning women, and his crackdown on alcohol trading in one of the world's largest consumers of alcohol, transgressions that Russia accepts as long as Kadyrov continued to carry out his duties in Grozny efficiently.

Perhaps Kadyrov, in spite of his Chechenness or perhaps because of it, is the only man who succeeded in completing what General Yermolov did not complete entirely on behalf of Moscow, a task Kadyrov knows well of its importance for the Russians, and therefore allows himself a wide margin to do what he wants inside Chechnya, like a dragon that does not It is saturated, as Politkovskaya described it. Today, Chechnya is politically and economically a Kadyrovistan, nothing more, nothing less!

In contrast lies Tatarstan;

It is like a bird that moves comfortably over its fulcrum inside Russia, from Crimea to Turkey, and from the world of Islamic instruments to trade with China. The small republic is the manifestation of a complete and truly existing “project” that has a special relationship with Moscow, and within the limits of the space granted to it by its geographical and historical circumstances. As for Kadyrov's project, it is merely a "mission" that Moscow has entrusted to carry out in order to suppress the very geography and history, which, in fact, give Chechnya more than a whole small republic, and more than the Kremlin can afford.