Nepotism in the Tatar manner

In accordance with the interpretation of Wikipedia, “Nepotism (from the Latin nepos – “grandson”, “nephew”) is the provision of positions to relatives or acquaintances, regardless of their professional abilities. A part of political corruption is a form of favoritism. Another name is cronyism, that is, “connivance in the service of one’s friends or relatives with the damage of the cause.” It comes from the practice of distribution by the Roman popes of profitable positions, higher church ranks or lands to close relatives.

For Tatars, helping a fellow countryman who is in trouble or in difficult living conditions far from his homeland (Tatarstan) is a sacred thing. Even if your worst enemy turns to you for help in foreign lands, whom you tried not to greet in your native village, then here, among strangers (for example, in remote Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazakhstan, Lithuania or Poland) you cannot refuse. You will be ashamed of friends, acquaintances, neighbors who have remained far away in their native land – suddenly a rumor will reach them that here, our Akhmet Khaliullin, remember his, he neglected his fellow countryman, refused to help, turned away and pretended to be a stranger. A shame! Tatar shame!

This, by the way, is one of the national traits of the Kazan Tatars, which allows them to survive in adverse conditions, swim to the saving shore, explore new spaces, start building prosperity and comfort for their family, shedding sweat, and sometimes tears, and smiling broadly for show – so that the enemies do not rejoice at your hardships and sufferings.

So maybe nepotism is not so bad? After all, a simple villager who broke free to a strange big city in search of success and prosperity is a positive creative resource that drives not only the Tatar himself to progress, but also the object of his efforts. Arriving at a large construction site, where they pay good money, and having mastered the work, Nigmatulla Akhmetov begins to think that it would be good to contact a relative or friend from Tatarstan and invite him to try himself at this construction site. They give a dormitory, they pay not bad money – why not call Bakhtiyar with Damir? The guys are hardworking and not stupid, so you can easily find work at the facility, both will be able to manage a tractor and a truck. They will not let down either Nigmatulla himself, or his superiors, or themselves. This is how the Tatar diasporas often grew up in different parts of the country, and sometimes beyond its borders. The principle has remained unshakable since the time of the Great Bulgar: you can quarrel with your people at home, but  help them in any way you can in a foreign country. And you will have the right to expect the same help from other Tatars, including friends and relatives of a bestowed countryman.

Well, what is wrong with such nepotism? I answer! In SUCH nepotism there is nothing bad, but good. But unfortunately, there are other forms of it. There it is not about helping a fellow countryman, but about pushing a relative, another “necessary person” into a warm place in front of those who deserve this place much more and have long deserved it. Such nepotism cannot lead to any progress, it only leads to the decay and collapse of an organization, institution, any structure – up to the whole Republic. “Nepotism” in our modern Tatar realities often takes just such a vicious form.

We read Tatar news and learn that Lenar Safin is appointed rector of Kazan University – the one who will bring problems to the university (and has already brought) and trouble. But this is nothing, because Minnikhanov and Safin are pleased and to their liking.

Kazan Federal University was disconnected from Microsoft. Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and even email are now inaccessible for students and professors. In addition, foreign universities, in particular from the Czech Republic and Germany, refused to cooperate with the university.

The students protested against the appointment of Lenar as a rector through connections, but their protest was quickly blown away, because his daughter Sabina is the wife of the nephew of gauleiter Minnikhanov himself. Both children of Safin did not study for a single day in Tatarstan educational institutions, but they studied in Switzerland and England. Somehow, the newly appointed rector will survive the sanctions, they do not bother him personally much.

And student protests… The latter, I remember, was organized at Kazan University by a young law student Volodya Ulyanov in 1887, for which he was kicked out of the famous university!

Today the student is no longer like this, “there are few real violent ones,” as V. Vysotskiy sang! Yes, and Minnikhanov will not stand on ceremony as the Russian king at the end of the nineteenth century. Volodya then had the courage enough to say prophetic words about the “wall of royal power”, “It is rotten – poke it and it will fall apart!” Today, unfortunately, there are no such “crazy” people either among the students of Kazan University, or somewhere else in our native Tatarstan, Putin has killed all the people of this breed like bedbugs. His own, special nepotism is provided for such cases. If you do not believe this, ask Prigozhin! Minnikhanov knows about it. And he tries to silently copy Putin’s narrative in personnel policy – it is much calmer and more profitable this way.