Celebration of the 1000th year anniversary of Kazan in California, USA

Celebration of the 1000th anniversary of Kazan, the enchanted capital of Tatarstan Republic that has both a brilliant and tragic history, was celebrated in Burlingame, California City Auditorium on June 5, 2005. American Tatars were honoured by the presence of Mr. Idris Gulluce, Vice-Mayor of Istanbul, Turkey, and Mr. Gokhan Gokbayrak, City Director. Among the 168 guests attending the concert were six professors from Stanford University, including visiting professors Alma Kunanbaeva of Alma Ata Izaly Zemtsovsky of St. Petersburg. Also in attendance were the newest immigrants to the United States from Krasnodar, Russia, four Akhaska Turks.

Introduction to the concert stated that substantial misconceptions exist about the people, Kazan Tatars, and the name “Kazan”. It was stated that the Tatars are Turkic peoples with their own language, culture, faith and age-old traditions and are different from Slavic Russian. However, the fate of Kazan and the Tatars are intertwined with those of Moscow and the Russians due to their proximity. The audience was told that the present day Kazan is a multi-cultural city and the home to the Turkic Tatars, Slavic Russians, and the Ugro-Finnic Mari, Udmurt and others.

Cuneyt Capanoglu