According to the testimony of entrepreneurs from some rural areas of Bashkiria, district administrations were forced to donate significant sums for regional centers and villages for the construction of numerous mosques. “Those were the times,” entrepreneurs sigh, and some of them add: “But there was order, everyone knew who needed to contribute and how much so that the issue would be resolved in the direction that suited you.”
In the republic, where about 40% of Russians lived, as well as Chuvash, Ukrainians, and Belarusians who professed Orthodoxy, baptized (Turkic-speaking ethnic group,
i.v. who voluntarily accepted Orthodoxy) and other peoples, there was a noticeable disproportion in the construction of religious buildings: in 2014, for 1,060 mosques there were 263 Orthodox churches and 38 religious buildings of other religions and denominations. In 2013, according to the head of the council for state-confessional relations under the head of the republic, Vyacheslav Pyatkov, 46 mosques and only three Orthodox churches were built in Bashkiria; by the beginning of 2014, another 139 mosques and 34 Orthodox churches were being built.
The eternal rivalry between Ufa and Kazan also played a role. In 2005, the Kul-Sharif mosque was opened in Kazan, the height of the minarets reaches about 57 meters, the central dome has a height of 39 meters. The mosque in Ufa, as conceived by the then authorities of Bashkortostan, was supposed to surpass the main mosque of neighboring Tataria, which the republic has been trying in vain to catch up and surpass since the parade of sovereignties. The scale of the project was amazing: the height of the minarets is 74 meters, the height of the dome is 46 meters, the area is 14 thousand square meters. meters. The authorities commissioned PKF Zhilstroykomplektsnab LLC to build the cathedral mosque.
The Ufa mayor's office without hesitation allocated a plot of land of 2.3 hectares for construction. The fact that next to the mosque stands the building of the Church of the Intercession, the oldest surviving religious building in Ufa, was not mentioned. There was no talk about the difficult terrain and karst voids in the area where the construction of the mosque was planned. Any attempts to remind that the mosque will be built on the territory that in the past was called Pokrovskaya Sloboda, and wishes to choose some other place for construction during Rakhimov’s time were regarded as “undermining the foundations”; for any disagreement with the actions of Rakhimov’s regime, those who doubted could pay with their place work.
Even then, in 2007, there was a project to develop the area between the mosque and the Church of the Intercession with high-rise residential buildings (commercial real estate), and the skyscrapers in the project were located close to the church, and no place was allocated for historical monument houses; they had to be demolished. “Why didn’t you show concern then, in 2007?” - a question is asked years later to local historians and historians. “Many did not know, and those who knew considered the project something unrealizable; in those years there were many different kinds of projects that seemed Manilovism, many of them never came true,” local historians and defenders of the architectural traditions of Ufa admit today.
An indefinite circle of people, controlled by the founders of the company, who are listed as the manager of the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus, Ildar Isheev (share in the authorized capital of 50%, or 15 thousand rubles), set out to demolish and build houses, trade in fuel and land plots, lend money to the management of real estate agencies and brokers. Chairman Nurmukhamet Nigmatullin and his first deputy Ayup Bibarsov (both 25%). It is unknown whether Altyn Kurai was created for a commercial development project, but the types of declared activities allowed it to be done.
No one can say exactly how much money was collected and spent “on the mosque.”
“In 2007, it was stated that the construction of the mosque would cost 1.5 billion rubles, a few years later the amount doubled, and later it was stated that taking into account the improvement of the territory, the estimate increased to 5 billion,” said the LogoMarkt expert community. - Major donors include UMMC-Holding, Ufaorgsintez, Bashkirenergo, Bashkirnefteprodukt, Ufaneftekhim, Novoil, Ufa Oil Refinery, Bashneft, Uralsib Bank, at the initial stage the amount of donations amounted to 294 million rubles.”
In 2009, a scandal broke out - it turned out that the money allocated for the construction of the mosque was used for other purposes, some of it was stolen. Construction of the mosque was suspended.
“About 70 million rubles disappeared without a trace, a significant amount at that time,” recalls Galin. - There was an impression that the mosque did not want to be built using the funds obtained in this way, and further development events only strengthened this impression.”
Two nannies
Initially, it was assumed that the mosque under construction could also be related to the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (TSDUM), headed by Mufti Talgat Tadzhutdin. It was in the Central Spiritual Educational Inspectorate, as Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote, that the mosque project was approved in 2007. The options for the name of the mosque proposed by the Central Spiritual Spiritual Directorate were far from perfect. At first it was proposed to give the mosque the name of Salavat Yulaev, the famous leader of one of the rebel units of Emelyan Pugachev. This initiative had one, but significant drawback - Yulaev was not glorified as a spiritual figure. Another name - “Sultan Mohammed al Murtaza” - appealed to the name of the then head of the region and could look like unobtrusive sycophancy.
In the future, the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate does not appear in publications about the mosque under construction, from which we can conclude that Murtaza Rakhimov has finally decided on the choice of the future “owner” of the new mosque, it became the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus, notes the secretary of the regional air defense department in the Republic of Belarus, Maxim Bozhko.
The existence of two Muslim “centers of power” in Bashkiria requires some explanation. In Bashkiria, as in Russia, there are actually two competing organizations - the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate and the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (SAMR), operating under the leadership of Ravil Gainutdin, also known as the Council of Muftis of Russia (SRM), the structure of which includes the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus under the leadership of Nurmuhammed Nigmatullin - noted the executive director of the Eurasian center “Samrau” Konstantin Safronov. “It’s not that they are in a state of acute conflict, but there is no mutual understanding or desire to work together between the two structures.”
The existence of two Muslim centers in Bashkiria, accompanied by a struggle for spheres of influence, is not new for the republic; something similar happened from 1917 to 1938, then the “new” Bashkir Spiritual Administration (BDU) and the old Central Spiritual Administration competed with each other.
According to religious scholar, expert at the Institute of National Strategy Rais Suleymanov, the split of the Muslim Ummah of Bashkiria into two muftiates, where one is under the jurisdiction of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims, and the second in the Council of Muftis of Russia, occurred in 1992.
“One of the reasons for the demarcation then lay in the ethnic factor: the Central Spiritual Spiritual Directorate was perceived as a “Tatar” muftiate, and at the behest of the rise of the Bashkir nationalist movement in the 1990s there was a desire to create a Bashkir muftiate. However, in practice, this is not always the case: for example, the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate has mosques in ethnically Bashkir regions, just as there were even Bashkir muftis subordinate to the Chairman of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate Talgat Tadzhutdin, and Nurmuhammed Nigmatullin has one of his deputies, Ayup Bibarsov, who is an ethnic Tatar,” - says the agency's interlocutor.
The conflict between Talgat Tadjutdin and Nurmuhammed Nigmatullin, which took place in the early 1990s, gradually faded away by the 2000s: both muftis in Bashkiria had approximately the same number of parishes, which, however, did not sometimes prevent imams who found themselves out of favor with one mufti, run over with the arrival of another mufti.
At the same time, the figures of Ravil Gainutdin and Talgat Tadzhutdin are to some extent equivalent, which cannot be said about the status of Nurmuhammed Nigmatullin.
“It is obvious that Tajutdin had greater authority: almost all foreign and nonresident delegations of officials, diplomats, and large businessmen tried to visit the residence of Talgat Hazrat, without considering it necessary to do the same in relation to Nigmatullin,” the expert emphasized. - Despite this situation, regional authorities are trying to maintain parity in relation to both muftiates. Largely thanks to the actions of the secular authorities, there are no open conflicts today between the two Muslim centralized organizations.”
The Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, headed by the Supreme Mufti Talgat Tajuddin, unites 25 regional muftiates and more than 2,000 Muslim organizations throughout Russia, of which 542 communities are located on the territory of the republic (404 are registered and 138 are not registered). In 1995, the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus included about 230 parishes. In 2015, the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus already included 697 Muslim communities located on the territory of the republic (465 registered and 232 unregistered). According to observers, the number of parishes under the jurisdiction of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus is growing.
“It can be assumed that Rakhimov, seeing the ambition of Ravil Gainutdin and the more restrained, less active position of Talgat Tadzhutdin, concluded that among the Muslims of Russia the SRM would enjoy the greatest authority, and among the Muslims of Bashkiria - the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus, which is why the future mosque was given to SBUM RB, the most popular in the “Bashkir” regions,” suggests Maxim Bozhko. - It is possible that the presence of the largest mosque in Ufa would contribute to more frequent visits to Ufa by the senior leadership of the Muslim Spiritual Board of Russia. The emergence of the largest mosque in Europe in the hands of the Muslim Spiritual Board of the Republic of Belarus, which is planned to be built cathedral mosque in Ufa, will definitely change the balance of power in favor of Nigmatullin and will reduce the influence of the Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslim Talgat Tadzhutdin, located in Ufa since the times of the Soviet Union.”
Under the wing of "Ural"
The final assignment of the mosque to the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus did not save the construction from misfortunes.
In 2009, the fuel and energy complex of Bashkiria became the property of AFK Sistema, which, as it later turned out, was illegal. The funds from the sale of the oil were eventually found in the Ural charitable foundation, which was headed by Murtaza Rakhimov. AFK, together with the Target Program Fund of the Republic of Bashkortostan, found 150 million rubles for the construction of a mosque, which was entrusted to the state-owned enterprise “Republican Department of Capital Construction” (KP RB “RUKS”). ROOKS and DUM could not get along, construction froze again. The mosque “didn’t want to be built.”
In 2010, the chair of the head of the region was taken by Rustem Khamitov, who made it clear that there would be no “return to Rakhimovism”; soon the fight against the “anti-Khamitite front” began, which included and includes Rakhimov’s adherents, and the issue of continuing the construction of the mosque was pushed back. According to some reports, the Ural Foundation offered its services in the construction of the mosque, but its proposal was not heard, since, according to rumors, there was an unspoken instruction from the White House of Ufa: not to take anything from the hands of the foundation.
In 2012, the question of completing construction arose with new urgency. There are two versions about the reasons for the intensification of construction. According to one of them, the impetus was the meeting between Khamitov and Gainutdin in Ufa in October 2012, at which, as stated on the SAMR website, the issue of completing the construction of the mosque was understood. According to another version, the impetus was the president’s order Russian Federation dated July 17, 2012 on measures to ensure the effective organization of the preparation process for the meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the meeting of the heads of state and government of the BRICS in 2015 in Ufa. Guests will come to the SCO and BRICS summits, but they will have nothing to show.
Negotiations began with the Ural Fund, Rakhimov, according to his admirers, put forward the following, very reasonable and understandable conditions: “No intermediaries, we give money only directly and maintain strict control over its spending.”
By 2013, an agreement was reached between the republican authorities, the Ural Foundation and the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus. The customer was directly the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus. The developer was the already familiar Altyn Kurai LLC, owned by the management of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus, as well as the chairman and his deputy of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus. In fact, the same persons acted as both the customer and the contractor, but then, in 2013, this bothered few people. There was no talk of commercial development in public space yet, but even then Nurmukhammad Nigmatullin mentioned that the Muslim Spiritual Directorate “has developed a project for a Muslim complex, the development of the project received support from the Ural Charitable Foundation, both the administration of the city of Ufa and the republican leadership are familiar with it "
Commerce instead of spirituality?
Passions boiled over a year later. As REGNUM reported in September, having considered the appeal of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus dated June 19, 2014, taking into account the minutes of the meeting of the commission on land use and development of Ufa, the mayor of Ufa, Irek Yalalov, decided to allow the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus to develop a draft layout and land surveying project for the territory of block No. 588, bounded by the avenue Salavat Yulaev, Mingazheva, Kommunisticheskaya streets to Bekhterev street with an approximate area of 20 hectares of urban land.
“The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Bashkortostan is starting work on a project called “Muslim City,” the website of the Spiritual Board of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus notified. - “Muslim City” involves the construction of a Muslim business and leisure center. On the allocated territory it is planned to build a complex of administrative and office buildings, a hotel, apart-hotel operating according to Islamic canons, family cafes and restaurants, shopping arcades, infrastructure for family vacation, park area." The Church of the Intercession, which falls within the development area, was planned to be “repaired and connected by a walking alley with the new Cathedral Mosque under construction”; no mention was made of historical and cultural monuments.
Local historians and social activists sounded the alarm.
“On Kommunisticheskaya Street, 143 there is most interesting monument history and culture - the brick yeast plant of Maksimov, known as the “house with kokoshniks”, next to it is the wooden house of Konovalova-Wolf, in which the Ufa priest Fyodor Zhilkin lived, a little further away is the brick mill of Demidov, a number of other interesting buildings can be named,” - listed by the authoritative Ufa local historian and historian Pavel Egorov.
In the ongoing online discussion, opponents of the development of Pokrovskaya Sloboda were called “alarmists” and “inciters.” “There is no approved project yet, there is no reason for alarm,” their opponents denounced the “alarmists.” “After the demolition of monumental houses, as is happening in Ufa, it will be too late to sound the alarm,” objected lovers of Ufa antiquity. They argued that moving the monument houses was impossible.
Local historians are sure: “It is impossible to move brick houses; wooden houses in Bashkiria cannot be moved. There was talk about a museum of wooden architecture under open air, which they planned to create in Ufa, it all ended with the logs from several houses being piled up in a deserted place, where they happily partially rotted and were partially taken away. Yes, monuments are sometimes moved at home - before flooding, for example, or from deserted places. However, Pokrovskaya Sloboda cannot be called a deserted place, and there are no plans to flood it yet. Historical monuments should be in their place, in their historical surroundings.”
The newspaper “Otechestvo” noted that the developers motivated their refusal to build high-rise buildings in other places in the quarter, away from the church, from “karst voids,” and the representatives of the RB SB “explained their inflexibility on the issue of height honestly: they need such large buildings for financial income, the money will be used for maintenance territories and propaganda of Islam in the region."
Just a few days later, on June 6, the board of trustees for the construction of the mosque at a special meeting demanded that expenses be reduced, as well as the direct financial interest of the leaders of the muftiate be eliminated. Two demands were put forward: to use cheaper analogues instead of expensive Greek marble, and also to eliminate the situation of combining the functions of the contractor and the customer in one person. “Altyn Kurai”, at the request of the Ural Foundation, remained the developer; it was only necessary to transfer the shares of Altyn Kurai LLC to the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus and appoint another person who was not an official of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus as the general director of Altyn Kurai LLC. The leadership of the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus answered with a categorical no - the marble is only Greek, the leadership of “Kurai” is the same.
In August, the hitherto silent Metropolitan of Ufa and Sterlitamak Nikon (Vasyukov) said his decisive word: in his letter to the mayor of Ufa Irek Yalalov, the bishop expressed disagreement with the name of the quarter and expressed the opinion that “the development of the built-up area along the path proposed by the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus is ill-conceived and has excessive scale." Particularly astute observers noted that Metropolitan Nikon broke his silence on the situation with Muslim City on the site of Pokrovskaya Sloboda after Patriarch Kirill’s visit to Ufa.
After this, the Muslim Spiritual Directorate hastily renamed the project the Interfaith Quarter of Peace and Harmony, but the mayor’s office refused to approve the project for Altyn Kurai, and later the administration stated that they demanded that it be finalized.
In August, Ural announced the suspension of construction financing.
Republican authorities and unfinished construction
On September 6, in an interview with TASS, Rustem Khamitov said that the authorities of Bashkiria are ready to support the construction of a cathedral mosque on Salavat Yulaev Avenue. According to the Head of Bashkiria, back in 2012, the authorities offered cooperation to the Ural charitable foundation, but the foundation refused. After problems arose with financing the facility, the government is still ready to help, but no corresponding request has yet been received.
On September 21, a corresponding request was received. The chairman of the board of the Ural charitable foundation, Murtaza Rakhimov, sent a letter to the head of the region, Rustem Khamitov, in which he expressed the hope that Khamitov’s personal intervention will eliminate the problems that have arisen with the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of the Republic of Belarus. “The requirements to reduce the cost of construction, eliminate conflicts of interest and use funds for their intended purpose are reasonable and logical, and the construction of such a large and significant facility should not remain hostage to the interests of a group of affiliated persons,” Rakhimov wrote.
Less than a month has passed since on October 3, at the Sochi-2016 forum, the head of Bashkortostan, Rustem Khamitov, announced that budget funds would not be allocated for the construction of the Ar-Rakhim mosque in Ufa. The customer for the construction of the Ufa Cathedral Mosque is able to complete the construction of the facility independently, without the intervention of the republican authorities.
Khamitov’s seeming inconsistency on the issue of supporting the completion of the cathedral mosque is due to several reasons.
“The loss of Ufa’s status as the “capital of the Muslim world in the European part of Russia and Siberia” and the strengthening of the SSMR is not only not in the interests of the head of the republic Khamitov, but also contradicts them,” Maxim Bozhko expressed his opinion. - In addition, the construction of the largest mosque in Europe in Ufa will increase Rakhimov’s authority in the eyes of the residents of the republic and will conclusively demonstrate Rakhimov’s superiority to the elites of Bashkiria. In youth language, Murtaza Gubaidulovich will show “who’s the daddy here.” The sum of such consequences of the implementation of the project to create the Cathedral Mosque can undermine the position of Rustem Khamitov.”
Court cases
In October, the arbitration court of Bashkiria began considering the claim of the Ural charitable foundation for the recovery of 64.5 million rubles (the amount of recovery includes 56.8 million rubles of the principal debt and 7.6 million rubles of interest for the use of other people's funds) from the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Bashkiria . In addition to collecting funds that, in the opinion of the foundation, were sent by the Muslim Spiritual Directorate instead of building a mosque to purchase a plot from the Ufa mayor's office for a commercial project, the foundation demanded the termination of the charity agreement with the Muslim Spiritual Directorate.
In December 2016, the Arbitration Court of Bashkiria decided to terminate the contract of charitable assistance between the foundation and the muftiate, and also ordered the spiritual administration to return to the sponsor 56.8 million rubles spent inappropriately.
“The money was given for the construction of a mosque, and not for commercial real estate,” the Ural Fund claims.
The Muslim Spiritual Board of the Republic of Belarus did not abandon its plans. In February 2017, Altyn Kurai demanded that Ufa deputies schedule repeated hearings on the project for developing the territory near the new Ar-Rakhim Cathedral Mosque. The DUM does not intend to revise the project completed by the Municipal Unitary Enterprise "Architectural and Planning Bureau of Ufa", since the Municipal Unitary Enterprise believes that their project is impeccable.
In March, the Chelyabinsk Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the claim against the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Belarus for the recovery of 56.8 million rubles in favor of the Ural Charitable Foundation.
Instead of a conclusion
Political scientist Kirill Zotov believes that “outright project-making in the form of the Muslim City project received excessive funding at the first stage from the Ural charitable foundation, with whose money the land for commercial development was purchased.” This once again demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the mechanism chosen by Murtaza Rakhimov for accumulating funds received from the privatization of the Bashkir fuel and energy complex.
“A gigantic unfinished project is probably not what Murtaza Rakhimov wanted to get, for whom it is extremely important to leave a good memory of himself,” Zotov noted.
The issue of the construction of the Ufa Cathedral Mosque on Salavat Yulaev Avenue is a painful topic for many Ufa residents representing the Muslim ummah.
“The religious building, which was supposed to become an architectural decoration, pleasing to the eye not only of believers, but also of other residents and guests of the city, is gradually turning into a long-term construction. One of the main reasons is that the mosque was actually built with funds from the Ural Charitable Foundation, which, in light of recent events related to legal proceedings with AFK Sistema, is trying to shift responsibility to the government of Bashkiria. It seems that allocating public funds for the construction of a mosque, as well as any other religious building, is not the best idea in a secular state, which Russia still is. Construction should be carried out on the basis of attracting sponsorship funds, private investors, and funds from philanthropists. Moreover, there are numerous examples when mosques or Orthodox churches were restored or rebuilt by patrons of the arts,” says Konstantin Safronov, executive director of the Samrau Eurasian Center. - In the situation with the Ufa Cathedral Mosque, the Muslim world could act together and attract common, very significant resources to solve this problem. However, this is not happening yet, and the situation at the moment resembles a stalemate.”
The opinion was voiced that the situation with the cathedral mosque once again demonstrates the harmfulness of concentrating resources in one hand. On one side of the conflict is an LLC with an authorized capital of 30 thousand rubles and an unwillingness to change the project, preserving several small houses, historical monuments and the desire to squeeze as much material benefits out of the situation as possible. On the other hand, there is the accumulation of funds from the sale of the fuel and energy complex of Bashkiria, in the construction of which the entire multinational population of the republic participated, in one hand.
The personal ambitions of several people took precedence over both common sense and spirituality, and, as usual, no one asked about the interests and feelings of ordinary Ufa residents.
10.04.2015
In the north-eastern part of the Bashkir capital, in the Inors microdistrict, another temple of God has opened its doors to parishioners. At the opening of “Madina” - that’s what the mosque was called - many Muslims gathered, the guests of honor among whom were: the Supreme Mufti, Sheikh-ul-Islam, Chairman of the Central Muslim Spiritual Directorate of Russia Talgat Safa Tadzhuddin; Chairman of the Council for State-Interfaith Relations under the President of the Republic of Belarus Vyacheslav Pyatkov; General Director of the Bashstroydetal group of companies, Chairman of the Commission of the World Kurultai of Bashkirs on Entrepreneurship, Economics and Land Management Ayrat Yulmukhametov; representatives of the authorities and Muslim clergy of Bashkortostan and neighboring regions.
On behalf of the state, Vyacheslav Pyatkov congratulated the residents of the microdistrict on the opening of Madina. He noted:
“We have a multi-confessional republic. We have churches, synagogues, and mosques. And, of course, I want to once again thank the respected Supreme Mufti for his spiritual service and for the rise of morality in society. One example is the opening of this mosque today. I wish you good health, success, so that peace, tranquility and good, good relations between all religions and nations will always reign in our home, which is called Russia.”
Talgat Tajuddin emphasized:
“This is an amazing mosque: there are no minarets, no mihrab... For many years, devout Muslims of Inors have been praying in several rooms of a rented apartment. There were people who, from the bottom of their hearts, sincerely wished to help the Muslim community and provided this room for several hundred people so that daily prayers and Friday holidays could be held...
The mosque is a piece of Paradise. You need to come here not for food and drink, but for food for the soul, because we have become starved of it over many decades of state atheism. Only under our spiritual administration, 14,500 mosques were destroyed, as well as tens and tens of thousands of Orthodox churches and synagogues. Tens of thousands of members of the clergy were repressed: some to Siberia, some to be shot. But faith, we believe, is not only in churches, it must, first of all, be in the soul. The Almighty says in the Holy Quran: “Not one of you will ever enter Paradise until he believes in God.” It also says that “not one of you will truly believe in God until you love each other.”
The opening of the mosque is a huge event in the life of all residents of Inors. Let it be the place where we, especially young people, will diligently learn traditional Islam, which our ancestors bequeathed to us, which is based on the holy Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).”
The mosque is located on the fourth floor of an administrative building. Previously, a local boiler house was located here, which entrepreneurs, in particular Ayrat Yulmukhametov, bought and improved in less than six months. The temple is represented by two prayer halls: men's and women's. The bathrooms are equipped with heated floors. The mosque gives out free dates.
After the ceremonial part, the Supreme Mufti held a Friday service. At the end of the collective prayer, a festive table awaited all guests.
This is how the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic commented on the situation around the construction. But this is not the only unfinished temple.
Instead of the long-awaited azan, today you can only hear the howling of the wind on the territory of the unfinished mosque. Watchman Anatoly Zemlyakov is the only one who works here: he walks around the territory, strengthens fences and feeds dogs. You can’t live without them at an abandoned construction site.
Construction of the cathedral mosque in Ufa began in 2007. Made in the form of a khan's tent, with a gilded dome and minarets in the form of spearheads, it will become one of the most beautiful in the country, the chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic, Nurmukhamat Hazrat, is sure. In addition to the prayer hall, 12 thousand square meters will house a museum, library, and school of education.
Now we are on the roof of the largest mosque in the republic under construction. The height of its minarets is 77 meters. There is also a special tourist balcony here. It is from this point that the Intercession Church of Ufa is clearly visible. According to the project, an interfaith alley was to be laid out from the mosque to the Orthodox church. But for now these grandiose plans remain just that.
Two years ago, construction of the mosque was stopped. Various reasons were given. According to Rishat Zainagabdinov, the project sponsor encountered financial difficulties and turned to the customer with a request to reduce construction costs and eliminate affiliation. But the appeal remained unheeded. Afterwards, funding for the project ceased.
The customer-developer assures that construction is delayed due to the unresolved land issue. Back in 2013, when the Spiritual Administration of Muslims accepted the facility, an examination showed that the previously built structure would not withstand the load of the minarets. They began to build a stylobate 30 meters wide. But gradually the area of the mosque went beyond the boundaries of the site.
The project for planning and surveying the block, say representatives of the developer, which was prepared in 2016, was ultimately not approved by the city administration. According to our sources, today the land issue rests on the finalization of this project. The administration itself gives extremely restrained comments, noting only that today an agreement has been reached with the customer of the facility on a joint solution to the issue.
Meanwhile, residents of the private sector, which were approached by construction, also became hostages of the long-term construction.
The mosque that greets everyone entering Ufa today is not the only unfinished temple in the city.
Prayers in the Resurrection Cathedral are heard in spite of all circumstances. Seven years ago, when it became clear that the church under construction had become a long-term construction project, one of the small areas of the temple was converted for worship.
Construction of a new Orthodox church on Komsomolskaya Street began in 2003. It was supposed to become an exact copy of the Resurrection Cathedral, which has not survived to this day, on the site of the current Bashdrama Theater. The construction was frozen due to lack of funding. Hope, says the rector of the temple, appeared when a special fund was created in the city last fall.
The parishioners of the temple have been waiting for more than 15 years now. They themselves admit that, whenever possible, they participate in fundraising. However, it is obvious that such large-scale objects, which should have taken their rightful place on the map of the republic’s attractions, cannot be completed by the efforts of believers alone.
The Ar-Rahim Cathedral Mosque is a building that has been under construction for several years in Ufa. The mosque was founded as part of the celebration of the 450th anniversary of the entry of Bashkiria into Russia.
For many years, Muslim leaders of the republic have been appealing to the state authorities of Bashkortostan about the construction of a new mosque in the capital of the region. They argued that existing mosques cannot accommodate everyone on days that are sacred to this belief.
The authorities of the republic agreed with the existence of this problem and allocated a land plot for future construction in the central part of Ufa, and a general contractor was also identified. Construction started in 2007. It was then that the first stone was laid.
It was planned that no budget funds would be used during construction, and all work carried out would be carried out at the expense of donations.
The height of the building's minarets reaches 74 meters. Thus making the mosque the tallest in the Russian Federation.
"Ar-Rahim" is built according to the traditional style for Islam, but with local inclusions. Externally, the mosque resembles a khan’s tent; the dome’s texture is very similar to a honeycomb. It is built using all modern technologies. For example, it has a heating system that helps get rid of the snow cover that forms on the dome. It also has fire-resistant properties. It can remain flame resistant for forty minutes.
Of great importance during the construction of the mosque was handmade. Almost all the design was created by human hands without the use of additional equipment. The marble for the mosque was specially brought from Greece (Taos Island), since only it had the required level of whiteness.
It was initially assumed that in 2017 the mosque would open its doors to Muslims. But the plans were not destined to come true, since 2009 was marked by a terrible scandal. The theft of funds that were donated by individuals and legal entities was revealed.
To continue the construction of the mosque three years later, a special fund was created that could control the construction work. In 2013, the Ural charitable foundation decided to complete the construction of the facility on its own. In short, several years ago this foundation also came up with a proposal to participate in the construction of a mosque, but the foundation’s wishes were ignored.
The mosque, together with the objects being built nearby, is located on an area of 20 hectares. The cost of infrastructure is 5 billion rubles.
The relic of the cathedral mosque should be a hair from the beard of the prophet, which is kept in Russia. There are only two such hairs in our country.
Muslim City
According to the plan, Ar-Rahim will become a key building in the Muslim City business complex under construction. The mosque will have six floors: four on the ground and two underground. It is expected that there will be spacious prayer halls, an Islamic museum, a cafe with halal food and various religious facilities.
The Muslim City project involves a large number of office premises, retail establishments, catering outlets that will function in accordance with the canons of Islam.
A park with several fountains is also planned. An alley that will be laid from the mosque towards the Intercession Church; it will symbolize the unity of people of different faiths living on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
“Ar-Rahim” will become the center for the development of the Islamic faith throughout the country, becoming a communication platform. You can see the unfinished monumental building at the entrance to the city. On a sunny day, the domes sparkle beautifully with golden reflections. It's impossible not to see.
Address: Ufa, 588th block
