Tatarstan

Tracing its history back more than a millennium to the Volga Bolgars, the area now known as the Republic of Tatarstan came under the influence and later control of Moscow in the 16th century. Conquered by Ivan IV, the Kazan Khanate was reformed as the Kazan Governorate in the Russian Empire, where it played an important role in both the geographic expansion and economic development of the Tsar’s domains. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Tatarstan was declared an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic; the fall of the USSR in 1991 led to a name change to the Republic of Tatarstan, now a subject of the Russian Federation. Today, its capital, Kazan, is one of Russia’s largest and most economically vibrant cities, where the post-Soviet period has seen a revitalization, not only of various educational and business ventures, but a reemergence of cultural and linguistic assertions of autonomy.