0 Likes
Bulgar Mosque (Russian: Мечеть Булгар, Tatar: Болгар мәчет), is a mosque in Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia.
The building is located in a new part of the Tatar capital, in the Novo-Savinovsk district. The mosque is constructed in order to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the Islamisation of Volga-Bulgaria, and opened in 1993. For most of the construction work is responsible the first imam, Farooq hazrat Fazanov. After him is named the madrasah of the mosque.
The construction of the Bulgar Mosque started in the beginning of the 1990s. The piece of land that was meant for the building, was a desolate swampy place. That's why the first job of the construction workers was to clear the terrain. The architects of the Bulgar Mosque are Valeriy Voginov, and Yevgeni Prokofiev.
The Muslim temple has a very original composition. In it are combined different objects varying by height, that are cut into each other diagonally from southwest to northeast. As is tradition, the mosque has separate entrances and rooms for men and women. The main prayer hall is on the second floor, while the room for women is on the first. The minaret is 35 meters high. The whole complex is constructed with white bricks, that seem to be in harmony with the apartment blocks that are around the mosque. Specialists describe the Bulgar Mosque as a modern Muslim temple, with a rationalist design.
...
Just in case you mistakenly heard that it was all ice and snow in Russia, take a peek at the Big Bikini Exposition. This is right on the river Moskva in Moscow!Moscow has been the capital of Russia for almost its entire history. The exception is during the period of the Russian Empire, which lasted from 1721 until the Russian Revolution 1917. For these two centuries the capital was St. Petersburg. The Russian Empire was the second largest contiguous Empire in world memory; only the Mongol Empire had been greater.Check out what's happening north of Mongolia these days, in ChitaAlthough you may not have heard of Sochi, on the Black Sea, they're building up quickly and hope to host the 2014 Olympics.Other periods of Russian history include the Tsardom of Russia, from Ivan IV to Peter the Great, and the Grand Duchy (14th-16th centuries).The earliest period of Russian history was ruled by the Novgorod Republic and Kievan Rus, which was the first Russian state dating back to 800AD in Kiev.Modern Russia remains one of the world's superpowers. They launched the earth's second satellite, called Sputnik 1, and were the first country to put a human being into orbit around earth. (The first one is called the Moon.)After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia became a federal republic of 83 states.Text by Steve Smith.
