Kazan — summer 2010

Today's English lesson with Lena was about the various isms of English: racism, sexism, ageism, weightism, religious intolerance.

To my surprise, she said, "I never think about racism." This is a woman who has a law degree, quite educated. When I mentioned to Aygul my surprise at the comment, she replied that probably most people on the street in Kazan don't think about racism. I wonder if that is true of just the Russians, or of the Tatars, too?

The Russians don't seem to harbor any negative emotions toward the Tatars, but among some older Tatars I've detected some negative feelings about the Russians. No great surprise, of course, since the area has been dominated by the Russians for so long.