[lbo-talk] Empire Smart vs. Empire Stupid

[Chris Doss]

I just got back to Moscow on the train from Kazan,
Tatarstan. Anyway among other things something that
most struck me was that the Kazan Kremlin is dominated
by two immense structures: a gorgeous, gold-encrusted
Russian Orthodox Church and a gorgeous,
gold-encrusted, mosque about 200 meters from it
(there's also a gorgeous synagogue and about a dozen
other mosques and churches in the town itself).
Anyway, not only does this exemplify the long history
of uneasy friendship/alliance between Islam and
Russian Orthodoxy, it shows what smart empires do. If
the US had been smart, the first thing it would have
done after conquering Baghdad would have been to BUILD
A GIANT MOSQUE, rather then bombing the existing ones.

In any case I had a great time. Tatar both sounds and
looks really cool, and thus I picked up a
Russian-Tatar teach-yourself-Tatar book, and got a
couple of CDs of Tatar folk and pop music. Interesting
but not surprising to have my earlier impression
reinforced that Tatars physically look much less
"Asian" than their fellow Golden Hordlings the Uzbeks,
Kazakhs, and Mongols, probably for the same reason
that Russians look less "European" than Germans --
Tatars and Russians have been intermarrying for
hundreds of years. The world's most famous Tatar,
Marat Safin (whose first name, traditionally spelled,
would be Murad), could easily pass for an Italian,
methinks. Or a Turk.

Nu, zayats, pogodi!

		
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