Latin Alphabet Variants

Latin Alphabet Variants for Idil-Ural Tatar

The big boys in Moscow recently outlawed the switch to Latin , or any other non-Cyrillic alphabet, although Cyrillic is not fully compatible with the Tatar language. The autonomy tug-of-war between Tatarstan and Moscow goes on.

Here are roughly 9 variants: here

Sөyembikә of Burlingame

We found another ancient structure that helps to explain why exactly the original Tatar settlers in California chose Burlingame to establish roots and begin a new life. We are witness to a foundation of arabesque brick arches, a tribute to distant Bolgar on the Volga. She is topped by Spasskaya as the cummerbund and decorated with a constructivist oil-rig sculpture, hinting at the riches hidden under the soils of Tatarstan.

After we snapped this pic, we were shocked to see that this tower has the identical tilt of the Soyembike Tower in Kazan. (at 194 cm (76 in))

Amazing!

Bolgar Kızları - Kürşelәr - Neighbors

Notes on Tatar Autonomy

"Inside Russia, 80 percent of the people are Russian. Most non-Russians are Muslim, and this worries some Russians. For centuries, Muslims and Russians have been engaged in on-and-off conflicts. Whether Tatars, Mongols, Turks, or another group of Muslims, Islam does battle with Russian Orthodoxy. Today, tensions between Russians and Muslims continue to boil.
How do the non-Russian feel? In a word, they are nervous. During and after the Soviet breakup, the people of Russia did not know how tightly or how freely they would be governed in their new state. A crush of groups claimed their own natural resources, foreign policies, and even independence. Russia was starting to tear apart, but Russia is overwhelmingly Russian and Russians do not want their country torn apart. Early in the twenty-first century, a popular national government has gradually and deliberately pulled and tucked the whole country back into compliance with Moscow. That policy spoils the hopes of people in places such as Tatarstan, Tuva, Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Sakha, and Chechnya. These regions are unknown to most Americans, but for Russians they represent a challenge to the federation and their moods deserve close watching. "

Russia and the Former Soviet Republics - 2006 McCray

Climate and Elevation

West of the Urals, the climate regions are generally less extreme, Tundra and taiga still cover the northern half of European Russia, but in Europe, the taiga has a longer growing season, more consistent rainfall, and a more balanced mix of trees. Needleleaf fir, spruce, and pine in the north give way to a transitional zone of broadleaf deciduous oak, ash, willow, alder, and birch. With so much leaf litter, mature brownish-colored soils have developed on this middle tier of European Russia. The climate of the Volga basin and the Russian Plain is reminiscent of Montana, Wyoming, or the Dakotas, and farmers grow barley, oats, rye, and pasture grasses.

The Vulgar Boatman

Now it was only a dollar, friends of the San Francisco Public Library book sale, but we just couldn't do it. It's just too bad of a pun.

Idel Oural - Idel- Ural

I'm not sure where we obtained this but it's a map of Idel-Oural (Idel-Ural) state that was formed in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Monarchy. The Idel-Oural State was then crushed by Bolsheviks.

The Idel-Ural State was a short-lived Tatar republic with its centre in Kazan that united Tatars, Bashkirs and the Chuvash in the turmoil of the Russian Civil War. Often viewed as an attempt to recreate the Khanate of Kazan, the republic was proclaimed on December 12, 1917, by a Congress of Muslims from Russia's interior and Siberia. "Idel-Ural" means "Volga-Ural" in the Tatar language.

On May 5, 1917 more than 800 non-Russian delegates representing Maris, Chuvashes, Udmurts, Mordvans (Mokshas and Erzyas), Komis, Komi-Permyaks, Kalmyks and Tatars held a general meeting in Kazan to create an independent Idel-Ural Republic in the Idel-Ural area in Russia. As a first concrete step, it was decided to create four professorships and two researchers' posts at Kazan University. The main idea was a loose League of Small Nations where all were free to strengthen their own cultural heritage. At first the Muslim Bashkirs declined to participate, but later in 1917 they and the Volga Germans joined the League of Idel-Ural.

Initially it comprised only Tatars and Bashkirs in the former Kazan and Ufa governorates, although other, non-Muslim and non-Turkic, nations of the area joined in a few months later: the Komi peoples, Mari, and Udmurts, who speak Finnic languages and practise either Orthodox Christianity or shamanism.[1] Defeated by the Red Army in April 1918, the republic was restored by the Czech Legion in the same July and the Bolsheviks managed finally to dissolve at the end of the year. This led to open revolt in 1919-1920 and even after the revolt was smashed by the Bolsheviks in 1921, the idea of the Idel-Ural State continued to exist clandestinely until 1929. That year the Cheka finally managed to infiltrate the Idel-Ural movement and smashed the leadership. Several thousand Idel-Ural supporters were executed all over the Volga and Ural minority-settled regions.

The president of Idel-Ural, Sadrí Maqsudí Arsal, escaped to Finland in 1918. He was well-received by the Finnish foreign minister, who remembered his valiant defence of the national self-determination and constitutional rights of Finland in the Russian Duma. The president-in-exile also met officials from Estonia before continuing in 1919 to Sweden, Germany and France, in a quest for Western support. Idel-Ural was listed among the "Captive Nations" in the Cold War-era public law (1959) of the United States.
Present-day Tatar nationalists rely on the historic precedent of an independent Idel-Ural to justify the re-establishment of a Turkic state independent of the Russian Federation."

wiki

Balkan Ghosts - Kaplan

Balkan Ghosts - Robert D. Kaplan 1995

No story of the Balkans would be complete without a mention of the Bulgar people.

excerpt:

The Bulgars, like the Magyars and the Turks who came later to Europe, were a Turkic (or Tartar) tribe from Central Asia. Around A.D. 681 about 250,000 of them, under Khan Asparuli, crossed the Danube into what would later become Bulgaria. The Bulgars interbred with the Slavs, who had arrived on the Balkan peninsula about 150 years earlier. "As is so often the case with mongrel products," writes the historian Nevill Forbes, "this new race exhibited considerable virility, cohesion, and driving power."