The video was shown to a house-full audience at the Russian Cultural Centre on July 01. Presided over by Professor Kabir Choudhury, the event was attended by the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Bangladesh, Oleg S Malginov.

Shahriar's video on Tatarstan let the audience learn a lot of aspects of the national life of the country about which little was known previously. The visit being organised and funded by the Embassy of the Russian Federation, Shahriar's aim was to observe the inter-faith relationship among different religious and ethnic groups living in the Russian State.

Shahriar went to Tatarstan on May 26 as a representative of South Asian People's Union against Fundamentalism and Communalism, a forum of which Shahriar is the Secretary General.

One of the 21 Russian Federation States, Tatarstan's two principal nations, the Tatar and the Russian, follow two major religions--Islam and Orthodox Christianity. Virtually an individual country, it has its own constitution, national anthem and flag, and an independent government, except for a few matters related to economy, defence and foreign policy.

There are seven principal ethnic groups who follow Islam and five others who follow Christianity. Despite this coexistence of two religious peoples who are almost equally powerful, Tatarstan is a unique example of fraternal harmony among numerous religious and ethnic sects living together for ages. Not only the government, the people of Tatarstan have never entertained any kind of fundamentalism and communalism. Especially, the Wahabism, flourished in the 18th century in Saudi Arabia, which aims at establishing militia conservatism in the society, faced a spontaneous reject from the people of Tatarstan about 150 years ago. The Islamic priests at that time developed a new philosophy named Zadidism that encouraged new relevant interpretations of the Holy Qur'an and the Hadiths.

Tatarstan is perhaps the only Muslim-inhabited country that has a mosque and a church situated side by side initiating a rare flavour of inter-religion fraternity among their followers for hundreds of years. The biggest mosque in the country, the Kul Sharif was, however, demolished by Tsar 'Ivan the Terrible' while the Orthodox Church was destroyed during the communist era. After communism was replaced, the present president of the country, Mintimer Shaimiev, permitted the erection of the mosque and the church again.

Archbishop Anastassi and Imam Mansoor Zalaledinov of the Tatar capital Kazan are two close friends who often discuss matters of mutual interest. 'Even the President sits with us for discussions on various national issues,' says the Archbishop to Shahriar. The first three donators to the building of the Raifa Virgin Monastery in Kazan--the President, the Prime Minister and the Mayor of Kazan--are all Muslims.

A land of educated people, Tatarstan achieved the hundred per cent rate of literacy even before the Russian Revolution in 1917.the name of Rabindranath Tagore is quite well known to the Tatar. 15 books of the Nobel Laureate have been translated in the Tatar language.

Shahriar's video cannot be called a good artwork, yet it must remain a good documentary piece on the land of the Tatars. A pamphlet was published on this occasion that contains Shahriar's articles published in installments in the Danik Janakantho.

The booklet will also serve as an important source of information about this country of respectful people.