Culture

International festivals and exhibition projects, world music premieres and tours of legendary theatres, art laboratories and folk holidays, - here are some features of the Tatarstan cultural life full of striking events and talented people.

Twelve objects of cultural heritage have been restored within the limits of an unprecedented project “Cultural heritage – island-town Sviyazhsk and ancient Bolgar” in 2010-2011. Restoration of cultural objects and development of territories of the Bolgar state historical-architectural museum reserve are underway in the museum area of the ancient town of Bolgar.

The Tatar literature has a thousand-year-old history. One of the early monuments of the Tatar-Bolgar written language, the poem “The story of Yusuf” by Kul Gali, dates back to 1212.Gabdulla Tukai whose works favored development of the whole national literature is called “the Tatar Pushkin”. The year of 2011 was announced the Year of Gabdulla Tukai in Tatarstan and countries - members of the International organization on developing Turkic culture TURKSOI to memorize art heritage of the great poet and in connection with his 125th anniversary. The UNESCO supported this idea. Jubilee events were held in many of Russian cities, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkey and other countries of the near and far abroad.

Names of such prominent writers as Leo Tolstoy, Sergei Aksakov, Maksim Gorky and Vasily Aksenov, poets Evgeny Boratynsky, Gavriil Derzhavin, Marina Tsvetaeva, Nikita Zabolotsky, artists Ivan Shishkin and Nikolai Feshin, poet Musa Jalil, composer Sofia Gubaidulina, musicians Oleg Lundstrem and Mikhail Pletnev are connected with Tatarstan.

The composer Salikh Saidashev is the founder of the Tatar professional music. Distinguished figures of the Russian music culture, graduates of Moscow and St.Petersburg conservatoires who laid the basis for classical music education took part in foundation of the Kazan conservatory in 1945. Such world-known musicians as Sofia Gubaidulina and Oleg Lundstrem are graduates of the Kazan conservatory.

The Tatar drama theatre founded at the beginning of the XX century as an amateur theatre has become a distinctive art phenomenon with its own aesthetics, dramaturgy, actor’s and director’s schools in the middle of the last century. It was the first national theatre to obtain the title of an academic theatre in 1926.

There are fifteen state theatres, the State ensemble of song and dance of the Republic of Tatarstan, the Tatar state philharmonic named after G.Tukai and the State big concert hall named after S.Saidashev functioning in republic.
The following international festivals have become very popular: the opera festival named after F.Shalyapin, the festival of classical ballet named after R.Nuriev, the festival of modern music “Europe-Asia”, the theatre festival of Turkic people “Nauruz”, the Kazan international festival of Muslim cinema, the open republican TV youth festival of variety art “Sozvezdie-Yoldyzlyk”.

Realization of international project “Pearls of the Tatar music” continued in 2011. Concerts of symphonic music were held in Stockholm (Sweden), Jerusalem (Israel), Almaty (Kazakhstan) within the limits of this project.
The State symphonic orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan is one of the most prominent music bands with All-Russia status. It was the first orchestra in Russia to obtain the status of an autonomous institution supported by the grant of the RT President. Four international music festivals were established in Kazan by initiative of the Art director and Chief conductor of the orchestra Alexandr Sladkovsky: Rakhlin seasons, “White lilac” named after Sergei Rakhmaninov, “Kazan autumn” and the festival of modern music named after Sofia Gubaidulina«СONCORDIA».

Artistic unions successfully work in republic. There are 60 museums in the region. One of them is the Centre “Hermitage-Kazan” opened due to cooperation between the State hermitage and cultural institutions of the Republic of Tatarstan.
There are 1550 libraries functioning now in republic including 4 republican libraries. A single information resource – the portal “National library of the Republic of Tatarstan” http://kitap.tatar.ru is being developed. Electronic versions of documents including so valuable and rare books digitized on the base of the National library are available on this resource.