Republican values
Myself, Venichka and a couple of buddies went to the ICA last night to attend a book promo about the more obscure republics of the Russian Federation. Daniel Kalder, the author in question, is a Scotsman who, whilst living and working in Moscow during the last decade or so, adopted an "anti-tourist" platform and decided to visit the stranger corners of Russia.
Illustrating his talk with photos, he led us on a weird and wonderful path among three of the Russian republics: Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. Of course, Kalder had to find hooks on which to hang his narrative, otherwise a strict interpretation of the "anti-tourist" policy would have killed his book dead, so in fact he focuses on aspects of the republics which, though strange and unusual, still fall within the realm of conventional tourism.
The president of Kalmykia is Kirsan Lyumzhinov, who also doubles up as the president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation. He's a major chess buff and has made it compulsory in Kalmykian schools. To the outside world, he appears to be a radically more benign version of Turkmenbashi. The Kalmyks are of great anthropological interest as the constitute the only Buddhist nation in Europe (they are of Mongolian origin).
Similarly, Mari El is home to one of the last groups of practising pagans in Europe. The Mari Els (Mari Elvians?) are a Finnish people, and appear to be chafing under the Russian yoke - or so the Economist says.
Udmurtia is famous for little less other than being the home of Mikhail Kalashnikov and a whopping great weapons factory that churns out high-quality, easy-to-use automatic rifles and belches noxious fumes. One of Kalder's more amusing pictures was of an Orthodox priest blessing an AK-47 on the factory steps, with Kalashnikov and the Udmurtian president in attendance.
Illustrating his talk with photos, he led us on a weird and wonderful path among three of the Russian republics: Kalmykia, Mari El, and Udmurtia. Of course, Kalder had to find hooks on which to hang his narrative, otherwise a strict interpretation of the "anti-tourist" policy would have killed his book dead, so in fact he focuses on aspects of the republics which, though strange and unusual, still fall within the realm of conventional tourism.
The president of Kalmykia is Kirsan Lyumzhinov, who also doubles up as the president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation. He's a major chess buff and has made it compulsory in Kalmykian schools. To the outside world, he appears to be a radically more benign version of Turkmenbashi. The Kalmyks are of great anthropological interest as the constitute the only Buddhist nation in Europe (they are of Mongolian origin).
Similarly, Mari El is home to one of the last groups of practising pagans in Europe. The Mari Els (Mari Elvians?) are a Finnish people, and appear to be chafing under the Russian yoke - or so the Economist says.
Udmurtia is famous for little less other than being the home of Mikhail Kalashnikov and a whopping great weapons factory that churns out high-quality, easy-to-use automatic rifles and belches noxious fumes. One of Kalder's more amusing pictures was of an Orthodox priest blessing an AK-47 on the factory steps, with Kalashnikov and the Udmurtian president in attendance.