Chinese arrive in Kazan for engines and helicopters
Tatarstan is going to create powerful engines, bring up its own football players and learn the mother tongue with Petrov
A big delegation from China headed by one of the PRC leaders is going to discuss economic cooperation of the two republics in Kazan. Meanwhile, Tatarstan is intending to seriously take up the training of its own professional football players and wants to make the Tatar language learning interesting and available.
Chinese will fly helicopters
Deputy Director of the Tatarstan president’s press service Liliya Galimova announced at the next meeting with journalists that a big Chinese delegation was to arrive in Kazan: it includes representatives of committees for foreign, constitutional and legal affairs, the vice foreign minister of the PRC, the extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the PRC to Russia, employees of the PRC chairman’s administration. And Chairman of Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Li Zhanshu, who is in the top 3 leaders of the state and considered to be a person close to the PRC’s Chairman Xi Jinping, is chairing the foreign group. A day earlier, Li Zhanshu met with President Vladimir Putin.
On 27 September morning, the Chinese were going to visit Kazan Helicopters, Kazan Federal University, the National Museum. In the evening, the leaders of Tatarstan and China were to discuss cooperation in high technologies, mechanical engineering, car manufacturing, petrochemistry, helicopter engineering, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, small business development in the Kazan Kremlin. The Consulate General of China operates in Kazan, while Tatarstan has a commercial and economic representative office in China. The sides have 20 cooperation agreements. Commodity turnover between Tatarstan and China in 2018 totalled $628 million, exports did $198 million, while imports — $430 million. These indicators are twice higher than the numbers in 2016.
Haier has a big project in Tatarstan, which launched its first factory in Master Kama Industrial Park in April 2016 with over $55 million investments. Within six months, the company reached its installed capacity and produces 1,000 fridges of 20 models a day. This August it opened a washing machine manufacturing factory in the industrial park in Naberezhnye Chelny.
Last year, Tatneft signed three big agreements with Chinese companies to provide services in the oil industry.
From 1984 to 2005, KAMAZ supplied 12,000 vehicles to the PRC. Unfortunately, this practice stopped when China began to manufacture its own cars. But anyway neither of the republics put paid to the cooperation in car manufacturing. Now they are discussing a joint project to create engines with a big capacity. In addition, Tatarstan promotes Kazan Helicopters’ new-generation Ansat and Mi-38 helicopters. On 28 September, the factory showed the guests the possibilities of their vehicles.
The free economic zone in China cooperation with Tatarstan Alabuga by developing the infrastructure of the latter. The annual production capacity in chemicals and mineral fertilisers in Alabuga will total 80,000 tonnes of melamine, 200,000 tonnes of ammonia, 460,000 tonnes of carbamide. Investments are planned to be about $400 million, it is supposed to create approximately 500 jobs.
How to celebrate holiday and create football school
Liliya Galimova briefly summed up the Tatarstan president’s address to the Tatarstan State Council. The regional president’s address was first for the re-elected parliament. There were 760 people in the hall during the address, including Tatarstan residents who made their contribution to the republic’s development: winners of WorldSkills, families and dynasties developing agriculture, people who succeeded as self-employed workers. This was the difference between this Address and the previous ones.
“So the annual address was about the role of human, which completely echoed by the audience that welcomed President Minnikhanov’s speech with applause,” Galimova stressed.
After the Address, ministries already began to set tasks, deadlines and appoint people who would be responsible for the regional leader’s instructions.
According to the representative of the Kazan Kremlin, the Tatarstan president’s instruction to organise a celebration by the 30th anniversary of Tatarstan’s sovereignty declaration is in progress. But a more important date will be next year: the Year of the 100th Anniversary of the TASSR was declared in the republic. And according to the Russian president’s decree on this occasion, a federal organising committee chaired by Vitaly Mutko has already been formed.
It was just recently supposed to build five indoor football stadiums in Tatarstan. However, Almetyevsk refused the erection of the sports venue. President Minnikhanov announced in his Address the construction of stadiums in Naberezhnye Chelny, Nizhnekamsk and two more in Kazan.
“The Ministry of Sport obviously analysed the needs, and it was made a decision to design four stadiums,” Liliya Galimova assumed.
The projects and ideas of the development of the football sports base in Tatarstan are now born in the Tatarstan government. The Ministry of Sport is studying the experience of Krasnodar Krai where a good football school was created.
“The task is to not only make children play football in free time but also bring up professional players for elite football,” the official representative of the Kazan Kremlin explained.
The Tatar language is a glass of water
“We made up this project so that you won’t think that my great deputy works more than I do,” Director of the Tatarstan president’s press service Eduard Khayrullin began his presentation with a joke.
And then the journalists learnt about the idea of the project, which was launched on 26 September.
“I was born in the city, and in the Russian-speaking environment I still fail to understand and feel the Tatar language with those teachers I had. So I thought why not go beyond the current language learning system,” Eduard Khayrullin said about his idea.
With this project, he turned to polyglot Dmitry Petrov who speaks 50 languages. He has his own difficulty level. Petrov gives the Mandarin 10 points, while Tatar and Russian score 3-4 points. He has a technique to learn Turkic languages. He even got a medal from the government of Kazakhstan for promoting the Kazakh language.
On Khayrullin’s request, the polyglot learnt Tatar for two months. According to Minnikhanov’s press secretary, not a penny was spent on this project from the budget.
There was made a group of enthusiasts who wanted to learn the language and helped to design the studio. A rap artist from Nigeria, a functionary, architect and restorer, puppet designers are in this group. They recorded 24 lessons, 20 minutes long each, which can be watched on Tatarstan-24 channel and on YouTube Tatar Language with Dmitry Petrov.
“Dmitry Petrov explained to us the structure of the language in key parts and showed it to us from the outside, like a glass of water. The learning turned out easy, informal, convenient, with references to world cultures and religions. And you realise what used to be impossible for you, you begin to understand, discover the language by disarticulating its tissue.”
Language conservation is one of the key areas in the republic’s development that President Minnikhanov outlined, he supported the project’s idea and even posted information about it on his Instagram. The enthusiasts made the first step. If there are interest and attention to the project, they will record the next 24 lessons.