Cuban envoy seeks to benefit from Tatar experience
Cuba continues aggressively to expand its ties with Russian Federation countries, according to a report from the Tatar-Inform news service.
On Wednesday (June 4), Cuban Ambassador Emilio Lozada García met in Kazan with Rustam Minnikhanov, president of the Republic of Tatarstan, and Mintimer Shaimiev, presidential advisor and chairman of the Renaissance National Foundation.
The meeting with President Minnikhanov was one of diplomatic courtesy — this was Lozada’s first trip to Tatarstan since becoming Cuba’s envoy to Moscow in October 2012 — but the encounter with Shaimiev had more practical purposes.
“We are studying the experience of Tatarstan in the perestroika years,” Lozada said, referring to the economic restructuring of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Republic in the mid-1980s, before the country established its sovereignty.
“Tatarstan has been successful largely due to the important decisions made by your government at the time,” the ambassador told Shaimiev, remarking that Cuba is currently going through its own economic “actualization” and that it welcomes the experience and example of other progressive nations.
To that effect, Lozada asked Shaimiev if he — Lozada — could study official documentation and legislation passed in the Tatar Republic during the perestroika years.
He also invited the Tatar government and its economic community to take part in Cuba’s “actualization” by investing in the island.
Tatarstan is about 500 miles east of Moscow, between the Volga and Kama rivers; it extends east to the Ural Mountains. It is one of the most economically developed regions of Russia. Its capital, Kazan (pop. 3.8 million), is one of the Russian Federation’s largest and most prosperous cities.
Tatarstan is a major producer of oil, with an output of 32 million tons per year and reserves estimated at more than 1 billion tons. It is home to the truck maker Kamaz, to the Kazan Helicopter Plant, and Tupolev aviation factories.
Referring to the Renaissance Foundation’s project to revive historical Tatar cities, such as Bolgar and Svijazhsk, Lozada pointed to Cuba’s efforts to restore and rehabilitate Old Havana. He invited Shaimiev to visit the Cuban capital and promised to tour Bolgar and Svijazhsk.
Present at the meeting with Shaimiev were Cuban Embassy advisor Natacha DÌaz Aguilera; the Cuban commercial attaché, Nadia Hernández Álvarez, and the Tatar economic representative in Havana, Leila Tazetdinova.
Also on Wednesday, Lozada met at the Kul Sharif Mosque in Kazan with the Mufti of Tatarstan, Kamil Khazrat Samigullin, reported the Tatar website Islam Today.
The subject of their talk was interfaith relations and the importance of traditional values. Muslims (55 percent of the population) coexist peacefully with the Russian Orthodox Church, the second largest religion in Tatarstan, the mufti told Lozada.
Upon parting, the mufti — a religious scholar — gave Lozada a facsimile edition of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, as published 227 years ago in the city of Kazan.
[Photo above of Lozada Garcia welcomed to the Kremlin by the Tatar president, Rustam Minnikhanov, on Wednesday (June 4)].
