The wisdom of a nation lies in its deeds, creative activities with a view to the future, and certainly in the preservation and development of the finest traditions of the past.

Some people consider such notions as the native country, dignity, honour and friendship as relics of the past. I disagree. There have always been and will be intrinsic humanitarian values; native land, honour, human dignity and cooperation have always been sacred for us.

 

«Multiethnic Tatarstan ready to cooperate». By M. Shaimiev.

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"There's no doubt, that Kazan is the first city in Russia after Moscow. I stay with a merchant, whose house has nine rooms, the walls of which are upholstered with silk, all armchairs are gilded, and everywhere there are cheval-glasses and marble tables under them...".

In May, 1767 Catherine II, being in Kazan on a visit, wrote this to her chancellor Panin.

 

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KAZAN I devote this poem To your beauty, my city, I'll ever admire it And won't forget Your streets and squares, Your parks and monuments; It's the part of the universe It's the part of my heart.

 

Lu Chun Fan, a Chinese student (former) of the Kazan State Pedagogical University. She lived in Kazan 15 years, studied there and loved it very much. (2002)

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The city "used to be walled round with timber and earth", wrote a Scottish traveller, Anthony Jenkinson, "but now the Emperor of Russia has given order to pluck down the old walls and to build them again with free stone".

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Akhmed-abn-Fadlan, a secretary of Baghdad embassy, who arrived in Volzhskaya Bulgaria in 922, wrote: "I saw snakes here in such a multitude that a dozen or more twined around a branch of the tree...".

In the 19th century a Kazan scientist Karl Fux wrote that "during the spring a great number of snakes crawled out on hills to bask in the sun".

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Knowledge has become the most economically important and dynamic resource all over the world. A fundamental principle is knowledge combined with the spiritual and physical training of a child. It is important to use most of the republic's huge scientific, educational, industrial potential to create an up-to-date, open integrated system of secondary and professional e'ducation.

Tatarstan President M. Shaimiev's message to the State Council,

February 28, 2000

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