Tatarstan has long been considered the bellwether of nationality relations inside Russia. The republic has arguably held this status since at least 1920, when Joseph Stalin—then Soviet Commissar for Nationalities Affairs—engaged in his first act of ethnic engineering by dividing up the Turkic peoples of... MORE

By population, Bashkortostan is the largest non-Russian republic in the Russian Federation. And yet, its particular ethnic mix has meant that this Middle Volga region has heretofore been far less unsettled than many others. The titular Bashkirs, a Turkic Muslim people, form only 29.5 percent... MORE

Russia’s Armed Forces and security bodies have concluded the primary military exercise of the combat training year. The strategic-operational exercise Tsentr 2015 was the largest of the year, modeling an intervention in Central Asia under the umbrella of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). The... MORE

By and large, the policy of the current leadership of Chechnya is to emphasize the positive sides of life both in the republic itself and in the Russian Federation in general. However, Chechen authorities sometimes show their discontent with Russian authorities. In one of the... MORE

Although not commonly associated with the Cossacks, the city of Kazan (in the ethnic republic of Tatarstan, historically a Muslim region) played host, in mid-June, to a meeting of the regional coordination center for Cossack revival. The meeting was attended by the Cossack Party of... MORE

On May 19, President Vladimir Putin addressed a joint meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations and the Council for Russian Language. “The preservation and development of the Russian language and all the languages of the peoples of the country are essential for the harmonization... MORE

Many might dismiss the beating of a 57-year-old imam in rural Chuvashia (Regnum, May 7) as a minor local episode. But in fact, it threatens to open a dramatic, violent and potentially explosive new phase in efforts by Talgat Tajuddin, the last mufti in the... MORE

On December 28, 2014, authorities in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, Tatarstan, detained Tatar rights activist Rafis Kashapov upon his return from Turkey, where he had reportedly received medical treatment and held meetings with local activists. The authorities ordered the activist detained for two months... MORE

Tatarstan remains the only republic in the Russian Federation whose governor has the official title of president. The Kremlin has insisted that there be only one president in the country—the president of the Russian Federation—and all of the autonomous republics have ultimately bowed to Moscow’s... MORE