The concept, by Kazan mayor Ilsur Metshin, was so simple as fairly revolutionary. Why not revenue from the yr of the Russian presidency of BRICS – with the primary BRICS + summit happening in Kazan subsequent October – to provide you with a brand new affiliation uniting BRICS+ cities?
Mayor Metshin is a giant fan of the “improvement oh horizontal hyperlinks between cities.” Kazan’s expertise in inter-municipal cooperation already spans over 1 / 4 of a century, with locations all around the world, and agreements on twinning relations struck with 71 cities.
The target of the brand new affiliation is to advance nearer cooperation on a number of fields – from economic system, tradition and schooling to ecology, waste administration and tourism. Like a large city-to-city working dialogue – primarily based crucially, to cite comrade Xi Jinping, on “peoples to peoples’ exchanges”.
Cue to this previous lengthy weekend in Kazan, when over 100 mayors, deputy mayors, heads of municipal associations and native authorities officers got here to the magnificent Kazan Metropolis Corridor for the primary BRICS+ Affiliation of Cities and Municipalities discussion board.
President Putin despatched a particular message to the opening ceremony, chaired by mayor Metshin, and that includes, amongst others, the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavash, and Yang Dong, Vice-President of the Chinese language Individuals’s Affiliation for Friendship with International Nations.
BRICS members China, Iran, India, Brazil and South Africa despatched the most important delegations to Kazan – starting from small cities among the many Brazilians to vital Iranian cities like Isfahan and Mashhad to a powerhouse like Harbin in China, the gateway to buying and selling with the Russian Far East.
The Argentina delegation – whose new President, Javier “Chainsaw” Milei, declined to be a part of BRICS – included a real dissident, Juan Javier Willipan, the mayor of Moreno. The post-Soviet area was absolutely represented by Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Belarus and Azerbaijan.
It was fascinating to observe interconnected pursuits voiced out of a number of latitudes, from the younger vice-mayor of Tehran, Hamidreza Natanzi, to ultra-energetic Bernadia Tjandradevi, a local of Yogyakarta, Indonesia’s cultural capital and secretary-general of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the United Cities and Native Governments.
Cruisin’ the Volga
It was greater than becoming that step one of a brand new, dynamic multilateral group, with immense development potential, ought to happen in Kazan, capital of Tatarstan, Russia’s window to the lands of Islam and 2024 BRICS+ capital.
The wealthy historical past of the town based within the late thirteenth century by Mongols/Tatars of the Golden Horde after they removed the Bulgar kingdom on the center Volga spans every little thing from capital of an unbiased khanate, main buying and selling heart, and the seize in 1552 by Ivan IV (“The Horrible”) with the previous Tatar fortress rebuilt as a Kremlin, to internet hosting Tolstoy and Lenin as college students.
So it was additionally becoming that the ultra-gracious, impeccably organized Kazan hosts would take the multinational BRICS+ crowd to a cruise within the Volga – the historic cradle of the Russian state.
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Alongside the best way, I shared a desk with Mikhail Solomentsev, an immensely cultured diplomat, African specialist and as we speak the everlasting consultant of the Republic of Crimea to President Putin. Our deep dive on all issues Crimea – and past – was a day earlier than the US-guided ATACMS assault on Sevastopol.
Our vacation spot was the island city of Sviyazhsk, surrounded by rivers on all sides; the Pike, the Sviyaga and the Volga. The unique settlement was based in 1551 by Ivan IV as a fortress supporting Russian troops to advance and seize Kazan from the Golden Horde.
Sviyazhsk is immensely treasured – beginning with the Archeological Timber Museum, the place the unique village, preserved in mud, is now being restored, and all that coupled with a 21 meter-long mural of life within the village because it was, recreated by AI.
The Assumption cathedral is enriched by fabulous 16thcentury frescoes, together with a ‘Saint Christopher with a Horse’s Head’ – actually, which might have been off-limits in a Rome basilica.
The icing on the Tatar cake was the Sabantuy – a mixture of Tatar folks vacation expertise and agricultural truthful: a sensorial psychedelic expertise – full with the re-enactment of a Tatar epic, the Story of Azamat, which facilities on a horseback hero who cultivates the land and wins the daughter of a village head in a contest.
Sabantuy in actual fact encapsulates basic Tatar values: land, household, hospitality, conventional customs – all watched from above by Tengri, the sky god. It’s all about concord – one thing that was immediately discovered by the BRICS+ crowd, and featured prominently when Putin, on the St. Petersburg discussion board, burdened the emergence of a multipolar, “harmonic” world.
Now it’s as much as BRICS+ cities, dozens, quickly a whole bunch, after which hundreds, to crosstalk and harmonize their improvement and problem-solving methods.
